


Who Lives, Who Dies

by princessoftheworlds, ScarlettsLetters



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hamilton - Miranda, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, American Revolution, Anal Sex, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hamilton References, M/M, Oral Sex, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 20:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 49,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15104684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: September 1781. A young soldier, Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan, reaches Philadelphia to deliver terrible news to Captain Steve Rogers and General Washington.The British pinned down the southern Continental Army under Nathanael Greene at Yorktown and the situation is dire. Major James “Bucky” Barnes was captured after leading a daring escape from the fort through British lines.Captain Rogers can’t sit still and let the Revolution or his dearest friend in the world falter, and takes up a star-spangled shield against General Washington’s direct orders.This is a tale of Captain America’s origins entwined with the founding of a new nation, and story of love and devotion overcoming the odds.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [PrincessoftheWorlds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds).
> 
> She planted the seeds of Captain America in a Hamilton AU. Captain Steve Rogers is one of the Founding Fathers, an aide-de-camp to General Washington. He's a far cry from the young, scrappy orphan freshly arrived in New York he was only a few years ago. His best friend, Major James "Bucky" Barnes, also serves General Washington. 
> 
> At the time of the story, Captain Rogers is encamped in Philadelphia. News brought from Virginia isn't good. Lord Cornwallis and his forces successfully cut off the southern half of the Continental Army. The Americans' French allies are nowhere to be found, their badly needed navy somewhere on the sea. The fate of American Revolution hangs in the balance.

Steven presses his boiled leather helm into a battered trunk. Even after removing the unnecessaries, the last time against his better judgment, his meticulously rolled and folded gear pops a good three inches above the lip. He feels the outline of his second best pair of boots through two good wool blankets and five shirts. To get away with four is a convenience for farmers, not a fresh captain.

Pushing harder only threatens the bottom of the trunk giving out. His petite wife standards in the doorway, drying her hands on her white apron. Her slim fingers leave no marks, in no small part because they are not damp.

“How long have you known?” he asks.

Peggy meets his questioning gaze unflinching. Her jaw firms up and she lifts her inch a fraction, though he doubts she knows she does this. His pugnacious dear wife, squaring off to defend her decisions, even against her God-given husband. If the Thirteen Colonies had a regiment, even half of one, made of her stern stuff, the Continental Army would run the British back to their ships in a heartbeat.

“A month or so,” she says.

“Peggy, you should have told me.”

Again he shoves the helm down. The corners of his blanket poke up, and he folds them around his wooden pistol case to cushion it on the journey. Ominous creaks stir as he pulls the lid up, watching with dismay as the gap between trunk and its top stretches as wide as his hand. He needs the straps, and best pray the leather-worker knew what they were about.

Peggy shakes her head as she watches the miniature drama unfold. Under her deft hands, she manages to pack up their entire household onto a wagon every other season, A talent her poor husband doesn’t possess, but she has a great many abilities. Such is why he loves her, and she exasperates him so.

“You needed time to rally and build support. What more will two days do?” she asks.

She is, of course, ever pragmatic and practical about these things. Their marriage, fresh and young though it is, illustrates the beautiful diversity of personalities and natures in the world. Steven cannot fault her for her readiness, any more than he can suppress his own bravery and impulses, troublesome as they can be. Peggy forgives him his excesses, and he overlooks hers.

“Will you say that with the British fleet blockading the waters to the south? Dearest wife, every man in the field makes a difference. I do no good standing about like a marionette entertaining good soldiers needed in the south,” he says.

They have worn out this same discussion for months. Blessed by wit and strength to serve the Continental Army, he is relegated to the tent of George Washington as little better than a courier and scribe. Her father, General Carter, holds the ear of the entire Continental Army’s senior staff. She knows his pain as he looks to her for succor, and finds her firm expression softening.

Peggy walks to him, her hands outstretched. He ceases to wrestle with his truculent luggage, dwarfing her small, calloused fingers with his own broad hands. She sighs as he pulls her to his chest, and the relief of her soft cheek presses into his rough linen shirt. “The war demands accommodations of us all. You have the gift of oratory and pleasing words where General Washington does not.”

“And he could not ask Major Stark? Anthony is as quick and glib as a fox, and the Pennsylvanians respect him as well,” Steve says into her warm chestnut curls.

Peggy laughs in her low contralto. “There’s just the problem. The roosters and hens know when a fox is among them. They need the faithful hound to convince them. You do yourself a disservice, suggesting you lack that wit. You do not, and you have double his warmth and candor.”

His sweet wife praises the truth. She all but worships it, if the comparison were not unseemly, praising only when she believes ardently in the sentiment. Honesty is her greatest virtue, safe defense of their family home. Nothing less is to be expected from General Carter’s daughter.

Her hair smells softly of the herbs she rinsed with, a small luxury not to be begrudged. “You have written your father three times to the one you send to me. And your sister Sharon twice. Though I am immersed in my business, I have taken note of your delinquencies.”

“Delinquencies!” Her voice leaps in volume, punctuating the soft smack of her hand to his chest. “I should think the Continental Congress very grateful for the work I do on my good father’s behalf.”

“You wrote to the general a month ago,” he reminds her. The tease of his smile dies back a bit and he strokes his thumb down the lean, delicate arch of her cheekbone. Shortages from all ports south of occupied New York took their toll on her. His modest income as an aide-de-camp and captain scarcely keeps pace with the cost of bread. Paper currency barely matches the denomination printed on the front. Credit has no value, the merchants refusing to take money or American writs. She has made accommodations, like all their set, and her much mended dresses are taken all too often for his tastes.

“I did. And so? Sharon will be here soon with the children,” she says.

He gazes over her, committing every sweet curve and spare line to memory. The bottom of his chest holds a sketchbook full of small charcoal drawings of those precious things to him that hearken to better times, when no one feared the bluster of cannons or chatter of riflemen over the village green. More than two-thirds of his pages bore Peggy’s face, her likeness, in all moods and lights.

This unceasing war has made paupers of them all. Major Stark sees to the financials in the privacy of Washington’s tent, a matter of state secrecy. But every day, messages slew over Steve’s small desk speaking of shortages in every state, every line extended beyond its maximum. He sees the letters written by the general to grieving widows and sad-faced parents, thanking them for their husband’s service and their family’s sacrifice.

How much longer the Continental Army can continue under these circumstances is a matter of argument among the senior staff. He knows the truth in his gut. The awful answers prevent him from obtaining precious sleep on his cot, when he can manage to gain any rest in camp at all. The situation is worse than nearly anyone knows.

Anyone but Peggy Rogers, daughter of General Carter. Her father may be the last source of reliable intelligence from New York, as he orchestrates the remnants of the northern Continental forces and calls for fresh recruits, as Steven and General Washington languish short of the besieged Chesapeake.

He hears the light tap on the door, hearing their servant Maria Hill answer in quiet murmurs. A closed door to their room meant no disruptions, a rule sacrosanct in the Rogers household. He rubs his face. “And he replied?”

An opportunity that she entered, fearless as any valkyrie descending on the battlefield. Peggy nodded, curt and precise. “I begged him to keep you home.”

His heart sank. Six weeks he spent traveling with General Washington’s stationary staff, many of them bureaucrats and wounded veterans unfit for the field, through the hinterlands of Pennsylvania and Delaware. He braved rain and muck, a tent patched too many times over to resist the summer rain, while his compatriots fought under siege in the south along the fringe of Virginia. “Peggy…”

“I’m not sorry,” she says. He pushes her away from him to look into her face. Her penetrating dark eyes meet his, gleaming in the candlelight. Unspoken truths lie silent between them, as high as mountains, a range he must cross at risk of his marital bed and her displeasure.

“There are men, our men, dying in the south.”

“I know. We need you too much in the north,” she says. “General Washington needs you here. My father needs you here.”

He grimaces, turning his head away. “I have exhausted every avenue open to me, writing correspondence to all the good men in New York I could think of. If the General refuses to grant me a position, how can I contribute to the Revolution from a tent? The conflict will end, and I will be unable to show my face in society. They will know me as Steven Rogers, the captain who would not fight on the battlefield.”

Peggy catches his hands, grasping them softly. Her peach skirts sway in a blousy bell, her worn slippers peeking through. “None would say it of you. Every war requires many hands to help, and not all hold muskets when a pen may assist. Major Stark doesn’t shoot.”

“Major Stark led men and has the rank of an officer.”

A gentle kiss pressed to his cheek brings that soft scent of fresh lavender and powder around him again. He associates the floral infusion with his dear wife, and he conjures the pale breath of spiky flower stalks in the heat of summer surrounded by paper and desperation in General Washington’s camp.

She tips her head as though she hears every word between Maria and their visitor, a line blooming on her brow. Not Sharon, if she looked so pensive.

“My father does his best by you, Steven. You mustn’t believe I would sabotage you,” she says.

He frowns, lifting her hands to his lips for a tender kiss. Let her not be wroth with him, not this close to his departure. “I know you think only of my future and our position. But had I known of Charleston, and the desperate position in Yorktown, I could petition General Washington and rise above my station.”  
  
“I know you wish to fight until the war is won, but you deserve a chance to make a name.” She pulls away from her husband, the apron smoothed over her soft dress, and setting herself back to rights. “With a pen, not a pistol or rifle. Look around and see how lucky we are right now.”

She speaks true, and he knows it. Half as many families in New York lack homes, children raised without benefit of their fathers. So many women beg for assistance, while merchants struggle to obtain their goods. Bandits and Redcoats in the countryside harry farmers, reaping the harvest and leaving nothing for spring. He very much believes the sentiment of their good fortune.

“Luck made by shirking my duty. Peg, you must let me go. I can convince him to let me ride with the cavalry or serve in the infantry. You know they will prepare a battalion to spare Yorktown the siege, if only we can reach Cornwallis’ forces along the Virginia Line.” Steve’s voice warms to the topic, a sparkle coming into his tone.

When he radiates such good cheer, the words coming fast and quick, Peggy struggles to keep up with him. Indeed, most people do. His typical audience retreats to their chairs and their drinks, unable to tune him out, not confident to match pace. Only his absent friend, James Barnes, and the Marquis de Lafayette, care to cross blades and thoughts with him. Ah, them and Major Stark. But the important major, too besotted with his British mistress Miss Potts, has no time or patience for Steven unless the general’s business pertains to him.

The door creaks open and Peggy rotates, the fury of her sighing skirts at odds with the pretense of calm gathered over her lovely face. “Miss Hill, what is the meaning of this?”

A man stumbles in, thick dust coating his rough jacket and his battered boots heavy with dirt to the knees. He doffs his hat and bends forward, almost stumbling as he sweeps his awkward bow, knees akimbo. Steve moves forward without thinking, tucking his petite wife behind him, and holding out a large hand to catch their guest before he crashes to the ground.

“Sir? I pray you are well?”

  
“You’re Cap’n Rogers?”

Exhaustion bruises purple hollows under the fellow’s filthy face. His unshaven cheeks show an uneven growth, and disguise how terribly young his face is. Only some. He carries himself like the weight of the world doubles him over, so terribly heavy a burden for those stooped shoulders to care. Steve gestures quickly. “Miss Hill, a chair, please. Water, if you would.”

The resourceful servant bustles out of the room to capture one of their mismatched high-backed chairs, carrying it into the room. Peggy pours a cup of water from the pitcher herself, carrying the precious glass in both hands as a precaution.

Steve steers their guest into the chair, and sinks down to his haunches rather than tower over the young man. No, a boy. He corrects himself, for the man cannot be much past eighteen at oldest.

“I am Captain Rogers,” he says, “and you reach my household at a time when I make my leave soon. Would you allow me your name?”

“Timothy Dugan.” The rich Irish brogue slides through the weariness, and Dugan manages a pained smile. He reaches into his coat, and Steve is on his feet, anticipating trouble. A knife, a pistol.

He need not worry, for Maria closes in with the chair and Peggy stands at the ready to hurl the glass. Woe to any fellow come to the Rogers household expecting either his wife or their servant to be helpless ladies, too prone to swooning than protecting themselves. He has seen for himself how thoroughly they respond to anyone accosting members of the fairer sex, and holds pity for Dugan when his face goes pale, showing every freckle in bright, spotted relief.

“A message!” he cries. “I have a message from Major Barnes.”

Steven drops his hand to his side, his mind reeling. “But Major Barnes is with General Greene in Yorktown. How could you escape?”

“He attempted to break out with the rest of the Seventh New Yorkers,” Dugan is breathless as he recounts the statement at high speed. Steve struggles to keep up with his words, influenced by the Irish accent. “At night, the cannons fall silent and the riflemen take to their drinking, you see. They’re already celebrating. Someone brought up kegs from Charleston and they were praising the fall of the city to the high heavens.”

“Breathe, boy,” Peggy calls but to no avail. Steve makes a gesture with his hand.

“No, keep going,” he says.

Encouraged, Dugan nods brusquely and blazes on. “Got what was coming to them, rightly so, those damn Redcoats. The riflemen got into a cask and caused a commotion, their officers left a meeting in high dudgeon. Next thing you know, they’re shouting over there. Well you know Barnes, hearing like a bat, he rounds up his men in a flash, lickety split. Myself included, you see. He pulled me right out of my duty and whispers, how would I like to go for a run in the dark. I thought he was half-mad, and he was, but soon enough he had a number of us gathered up and dashing over a field, It was reckless and mad. Providence smiled, though, for we broke past the British line.”

The household, few as they are, stand rapt on this news. Behind Maria, he spots young master Philip, and Nicholas too, all hanging on the Irishman’s every word. Peggy says nothing, merely offers the water to Dugan, and he takes the glass from her gratefully. “Thank ye,” he manages, and drains the lukewarm liquid in four long sips.

“How did you and Major Barnes end up out here? Has he come to the city?” Steve dares not to hope, for the price of hope in these times is too dear, worse than French silk or Italian wine or proper Irish whisky.

Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth and dampening his whiskers, the Irishman shakes his head. Dugan reads the tension, surely, for it seems to Steve he catches himself and abridges his tale. “We got free, and surely someone saw us. Scouts in the woods, Loyalist farmer on the way. We made it a night and holed up in barns, said we would meet at Forty-Four. It’s a tiny redoubt, nothing to speak of at all. On foot, mind you, we made excellent time. I stayed with Barnes, as he was mad enough to lead us out. A man you’d follow through thick and thin.”

“Aye,” says Hill. Peggy nods, her gaze faraway. Later her thoughts may be shared, offering precious insight. Steve can’t bring himself to look away as his heard hammers in his chest.

“Well, faith and begorrah, we manage to evade the bands out there looking for us. Major Barnes has a mind to go north, swinging through the rougher country to do it. We all know the Overmountain Men can’t make it past the British lines, but they know the ways ‘round. They’re right bastards to the British.” Dugan remembers his company after his mouth runs away with him and he blushes, flaming pink at the cheeks and beet red on the brow. He ducks his head. “Beg your pardon ladies. I haven’t no manners, my ma always said so.”

Maria has the decency to look affronted, but Steve strokes his jaw. It takes far worse to offend his good wife, but she has grown up around soldiers all her life. Peggy busies herself by taking a seat and presuming to listen, as the lady of the household should, immune to cares and intemperate passions as the blond captain himself is beset by. Oh, for a fraction of her calm.

“The thought is what counts,” he says. “How did you break through?”

“The Overmountain Men.” Dugan speaks their names with reverence usually reserved for Biblical prophets. “Got us out and over the river. They warned us that the Brits were hot as hell on our tails. Err, pardon again, ladies. I mean they were chasing us but good, and Major Barnes kept us all moving even when we thought we should drop. That’s the great irony of it. He was getting us across a ferry when Tarleton caught up.”

The name sends a chill through them all, and Steve’s breath hisses through his clenched teeth. Tarleton and his raiders, the British Legion proper, are far from ragtag ruffians. They hold a legendary reputation among the Continental Army. Washington himself despairs of the brilliant achievements by Tarleton, their leader. Some say he has the blessing of the Devil, to escape capture so often. His mounted force has the greatest mobility in the British Army, and they strike fear into the hearts of even seasoned soldiers.

Peggy sniffs. “Savage gentlemen. No doubt they would have fired the ferry, given the chance.”

Dugan eyes her up again, a clear gleam of appreciation in his weary, ravaged face. “Aye, lady, the very same. We didn’t stick about to discover his intentions, if you should imagine. We rushed over the river on our way, and that mad Barnes… He held up the ferry, firing at the front line riders, even Tarleton himself. It was an awful spectacle to see, the horses squealing and the riders scattering in all ways.”

It fits with the bold, impulsive Barnes they all knew. Maria sighs into her sleeve and, unable to catch himself, Steve echoes the sound. He cannot be seen to hide his face in a handkerchief or sob quietly. Philip doffs his hat in the hallway, face crestfallen, whereas steady, redoubtable Nicholas is much more inclined as Peggy is to stone-faced silence.

It falls to Steve to say the worst. “He’s been killed, then.”

“What?” Dugan bleats a noise and hastens to clarify himself, flapping his hands, standing in the middle of the room. His head shakes side to side, eyes dark and wide in his whey pale face. “No! No, not that at all. You thought he-- no-- hardly!”

How can the captain breathe after that? His nearest and oldest friend in the country, consigned to a quiet grave in the Virginian forest, betrays a fate worse than any he could imagine. He musters up enough dignity to nod, his composure shattered to bits.

Sniffing, Peggy shakes her head, dark curls flowing above her ears in bunches. “If you may continue, sir, and ease up our hearts.”

They all wait on him, as the congregation turns their faces expectantly to a priest about to give his homily. The poor boy has none of the gravitas or preparation for this. He sweats, perspiration on his brow, streaking the dirt on his battered clothes. Dugan quails.

“I’m sure it’s a good end,” Steve says.

Dugan gulps. “Old Tarly pulled him back to Yorktown, he did, along with a good number of the Seventh. They’ve no doubt got the worst of it, running short on rations. But Greene and Barnes are pinned down there. He gave me this, in case.”

The letter slapped into Steve’s numb hands is crumpled, roadworn and water spotted. He clutches it like his most precious gift, something worthy of a church altar. His name is penned in bold, proud lines across the front. He knows Barnes’ handwriting anywhere, as fluid and familiar as General Washington.

“Miss Hill, please see that our guest is refreshed and given a bed if he needs. Will you check that his horse is watered and fed?” Peggy is all perfect efficiency and hospitable as any good wife of an officer should be. A surge of pride radiates in his heart for his dear, beloved wife. Steve struggles to parse anything further, stunned by the precious letter in his hands.

“Wait, Master Dugan. A moment, please.”

The boy turns, coming close. “Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“How…” He swallows. “How long ago?”

“A fortnight, maybe? I confess I don’t know the day. Maybe a score of days, but I don’t imagine long.” Dugan pulls on his forelock, face in a mighty frown. “About such. I am most sorry for interrupting your household. I owed it to Major Barnes. He gave me my freedom, and I must give that.”

“For which you will be richly rewarded. When you have rested, ask Nicholas to take you to General Washington’s camp. Ask for…” Steve is nigh at a loss, the swirl of activity in his feverish mind dancing in all directions. “Wilson. He will direct you to the right place. Tell no one else about this. I mean to make my own inquiries and join you immediately, but the general must know about Yorktown and Tarleton.”

The spooked boy’s face goes from red to white in an unimaginable space. “Washington?” he squeaked. “The General?”

The older blond officer plucks a ribbon from his shirt, the small round disk mounted by a star. Nothing significant, a pin of little consequence, but a prize. He hands it to the Irish boy. “Mine and Major Barnes’ commander. You may take this to assure your passage. Now be quick about it. I should be there within the hour.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Dugan makes a loose attempt to straighten himself, and Peggy stifles a smile watching the display. “I’ll be there right away, sir. Thank you, ma’am. Sir.”

It will be some time, Steve is sure, before Peggy smiles again. He already holds a resolve in his heart to travel to Yorktown, and nothing short of the angels themselves will keep him from rescuing Bucky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Steve steals a quiet moment to read Bucky's letter, enter Sharon Church, nee Carter, the formidable elder daughter of General Schuyler. Sharon fills the role of Angelica, of course.

The only place he can go for privacy is his tiny office, a repurposed pantry with scarcely room enough for a stack of his precious papers and a few books obtained during his tenure in General Washington’s service. Steve pushes away empty boxes and the kindling stack, bound for the modest writing desk and chair justifying the room’s appellation as a study.

Paper shakes in Steve’s fingers. He sinks into the chair. A thick metal paperweight and a straight-edge rule put to good use straighten out the creases settled into the folded message over its long journey. Careful attention restores its proper appearance, though little can be done to help the sweat stains or the cracked seal made from cheap candle wax. The smears are thin and crumble to the letter-opener that he sweeps through the flap.

Bucky Barnes’ writing slants over the page. Incomprehensible letters stagger in a drunken line to the margin, pinched tight and close for a lack of space. Haste clearly drove him to pen the correspondence. Steve knows how much his best friend prides himself as a man of education and letters, his calligraphy a testament to his intellectual character. Despite their mutually humble upbringing, Bucky and Steve strive to excel in their academic pursuits.

_I wish, my dear Steven, that it might be in my power, by action rather than words, to convince you of my everlasting friendship. I shall only tell you that until I bade you adieu at New York, I hardly knew the value you held in my heart. I may not live to see our glory, but I am glad I joined the fight with you. Providence hides her face from us, I pray you will remember my affections and care for my sister as if she were your own._

His best friend holds a sentimental nature beneath his brusque, capable exterior. The cramped words resonate with affection across the weeks and hundreds of miles separating Steve from Bucky, Philadelphia from Yorktown. He chews on his cuticle as he continues to read. A bad habit he developed in times of anxiety, it remains one character flaw he has yet to address despite Peggy’s best efforts.

Placing the paperweight at the top of the page, Steve leans over. He blots out the sounds of the household and the war-strickened city. Separated by their duties to the Revolution more often than they are together, they live to read these letters. Messengers crossing the colonies send a regular string of correspondence. Since Yorktown fell under the British, they cease to carry word from General Nathanael Greene’s men, Bucky included.

With that silence, Steve feels like he lost his left arm. He can go through the motions of an aide-de-camp and act as a capable husband. Bucky’s loss pinched out something integral inside. Dugan has no idea the value of what he brought. Beyond a letter -- good as that is -- he delivers proof of Barnes leads his men and fights on.  
  
Such damnable bravery. Pulling on the stuck drawer, he pushes aside half-filled ink bottles and broken nibs, handkerchiefs, and a small bag of sand. Deeper still he finds the battered metal flask saved for rare moments like these. A sip of brandy goes down smooth and hot. The parting gift from his friend the Marquis de Lafayette reminds him of better times, when he and Lafayette, Wilson and Barnes drank toasts to the Revolution and cooked up new ways to defend New York from their enemies.

_Indeed, my friend, I have little time for so many words. I should have written to you more. I mean to take advantage of the caprice of our enemies this very night. Every day we remain in bondage in Yorktown stifles our spirits. Gen. Greene does his best by us. Morale barely holds out. Every morning is a little worse. The British mean it so. They play their damnable music to keep us from resting and bombard us from every direction. Cannons and guns pound us through the night. None sleep well._

_Conditions are dire. We are prisoners here on short rations while every day, supplies are being carted over the waves to replenish our enemies. We lost two more redoubts in the past week and the good soldiers retreated with their empty muskets back to the fort’s walls._

Reports conveyed to General Washington speak of the hardship endured by the American forces. Trapped in their fort, soldiers play out their limited resources, confined to their encampment surrounded by a double-ring of British soldiers and Hessian mercenaries, Native Americans, and Loyalists. Steve reads the hasty missives delivered by exhausted couriers, much like Dugan, describing the terrible conditions faced by their brave men.

The Revolution hinges on the loyalty and endurance of those soldiers pinned down in Virginia. General Greene represents the last major fighting force available in the south and middle colonies, for the rest dissipated into mist with the fall of Charleston months before. Steve closes his eyes. He can only imagine the terrible conditions. Men dare not squander a shot or a bullet, nor eat more than his portion of hard tack or a cup of watery ale. All efforts to negotiate a parlay or infiltrate the British lines have failed.

Save this letter, this proof laid out on his desk. Of course someone as mad and brave as Major Barnes dared to try the British lines and break out. Leading his men on a dash through occupied territory to freedom paints a dazzling image in Steve’s mind. He can easily see Bucky encouraging his men on, a fearless leader trudging through the forest, guiding them forward while baying hands, shouting soldiers, and whinnying horses trail in their wake.

_Cannons and guns pound us through the night. None sleep well. We shuffle through the blessed daylight, praying for relief. From the lost southern army, or some brilliant feint by Gen. Washington. We joke that Rochambeau or de Grasse is just around the headland. How tormenting to see the respite of the ocean out of reach. Good cheer is in short supply, more than bread or beer._

_Our brothers must rise up -- to break the shackles on Yorktown. Our soldiers are on their knees, and they will rise up. You know what must be done, Steven. Convince the General’s staff we need more bold strokes. I will make the first move to show them the path out of our bondage._

_Do or die. I cannot endure this captivity any longer. Tomorrow there will be more of us breaking through the lines. They’ll tell the story of the night we defied our captors, showing the true spirit of our young nation. I pray we find success in reaching friendly territory._

Steve lights a candle and pulled it nearer, holding up the letter in front of the flame. Watermarks turned more translucent against the glow gilding the cheap paper to something beautiful, like parchment. Long ago, Bucky taught him the secret of treating a page to hide messages or shapes. They used to exchange crude sketches and brief missives behind venerable quotes in their correspondence, embellishing the dull words with growing artistic skill. No such hidden shape or message appears.

His heart sinks a little.  
  
In his straitened conditions, Bucky likely had no such time. His brave words ring through the smeared, blurry ink. Tracing his fingers over each shape, the captain closes his eyes. How easy to imagine the men on foot, dashing through the trees in threes and fours. He can almost hear the clink of the horses’ tack and the dreaded riders -- Tarleton’s Raiders, in their famous green uniforms -- harrying the exhausted, starving American soldiers every step of the way.

Each of those men from Yorktown has more courage than the whole of New York. What he would give to be with them now. If Dugan spoke true, Major Barnes paid dreadfully for his show of bravado. The British won’t take kindly to a gentleman bloodying their noses, hurting their pride.

“I have to help,” he says to the dust bunnies in the corners and the row of books. “I cannot sit idly by.”

Steve decides on a course in the back of his mind, but he hastily finished the letter. Outside his private sanctuary, he hears a high, piping child’s voice over the lower tittering of the women. His heart beats hard, not only on account of the surprise brought by the unexpected courier.

That can only be Sharon and her brood. The Church children, both of them, added colour to the quiet house. He puts his hand to his brow. Sooner or later, he expected the golden firebrand to intrude on the rare moments of peace he snatched from the jaws of duty and responsibility.

Sharon will have to wait. Futures depend on him, and his decision relies on what he reads. Already he itches to find a horse and rise south. His hands fidget, and he clasps them together, the better to keep himself in check. Bucky first.

_I have talked to the General about your station. I am not the only one in the family who thinks you should receive a command posting. Good leaders are rare, but men of good character leading others rarer yet. Surely our Commander in Chief looks beyond my bias and heeds the wise counsel with regards to your military merit. We hold your interests at heart, my dearest friend._

Steve bites his inner cheek. The family -- those aides-de-camp to General Washington, those he  rubs shoulders with most often -- have often looked askance on his lack of promotion. Senior officers ask him if he is fine when the general overlooks him, and he wears his constant smile. Washington knows best. Silent resignation shackles his heart every time he hears of another promotion among his dear friends.

Here is proof, not twenty days old, that Major Barnes does right. The worst of circumstances cannot inhibit his pen on the chance word may reach the general. Sagging in his chair, the blond feels the emptiness and loss of his dearest companion keenly.

_I’ve resolved to lavish no more thought upon dark consequences, and gird myself with certainty that you owe me a drink. Raise a glass to freedom for me tonight. Then hasten to give me the pleasure of your company at the earliest opportunity. We have fought side by side to make America free. Let us hand in hand struggle to make the future happy._

_Adieu, B. B._

The door slips open while he bows his head, sending a silent prayer to the men facing an endless uphill climb. British pressure upon Yorktown is relentless. Any chance to escape relies on the vagaries of the weather or miracles, even those engineered by brave men. So few may survive the onslaught if Lord Cornwallis cannot be routed. He knows they need help.

Only General Washington, a man who loves him as a son, holds the key to this terrible lock. He resolves to head to the camp with the letter in hand. Between Dugan’s testimony and his persuasion, maybe he shall see reason. Perhaps he shall permit Steve to take his leave, and organize some manner of rear guard on the besieging British forces.

He stands and turns, expecting Phillip or Nicholas to call him for supper and seeing their guests. Of all the people to breach the perimeter into his modest sanctuary, he hardly imagines Sharon Church, the sparkling elder sister to his beloved Peggy.

“Well, if it isn’t Steven Rogers. Good sir.”

Sharon’s voice carries well through the study. She stands in the doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight streaming softly through a window in the kitchen. Rich celandine silks clothe her, and the hazy sheen lingers upon their surface to further reveal decadent embroidery around the square-necked bodice. She is every bit the image of a rich man’s wife, right down to the row of pearls on her wrist and sheer linen draped carelessly about her throat. Such luxuries hardly belonged in the humble city house that Steve rented, but then money presents no issue for a woman wed to one of the great merchants of London.

He leaves his seat, bending deeper than social convention deems absolutely necessary. “Mrs. Church.”

Any dark thoughts of Bucky flee in the warmth of her radiant smile. “I came to say congratulations.”

“Congratulations?” he asks, a touch puzzled.

Another step into the room and Sharon dares to intrude upon a sacred space anointed for his use alone. Not even Peggy bothers him in the study often. She performs her own correspondence from their bedroom, or the kitchen table when the hour favours dispatching letters. “That you made yourself indispensable to General Washington. My sister has nothing but praise for your efforts.”

He’s not sure why she comes, his face an open book of curiosity and uncertainty. “You’re very kind, but I’m afraid that I hardly deserve the credit. My business keeps me occupied writing and shuffling notices about, not taking an active hand in protecting the country.”

Fair eyebrows arch above clear blue eyes too sharp to miss the letter and Steve’s dour mood. She purses her lips for a moment, bracing her fist under her chin, cupping her elbow. Long sleeves tumble back to expose her ivory arm, the small bracelet woven with strands of sapphire and bright red thread. It pleases him to see the small white star tucked at her delicate wristbone, a clear sign of her favour for the Revolutionary cause.

“You are well respected on the General’s staff. I heard from the merchants and the city politicians that you work diligently. You coordinate the mess of affairs left by the war, and seem to make materials and resources appear from thin air. Isn’t that something to be proud of?” Her skirts shiver as she tucks them in, rounding the pile of kindling to approach closer.

He says nothing.

“She believes you were meant for more than this, you know.” Her gaze flicks to the door where the laughter from the Church children and the warm reply from Peggy filter through like motes in a beam of sunlight. “The way you’re confined to camp hurts her too. She knows your dream.”

He seeks escape from her gentle, solicitous manners in the stacks of paper and books. The familiar weight of disappointment clutches at his heart. “I have more than I ever imagined when I first reached New York. The war provided the opportunity to serve the country and act on the frontlines. I have everything I ever wanted.” His head dips again, for the longing in his voice is unmistakable. “And I am sitting behind the lines while other men go through Hell and back again.”

Listening is a rare gift. Few really have the patience to truly hear someone’s words without conjuring up a response or even attempting to solve the problem. One of Sharon’s sparkling qualities lies in her complete control during a conversation, shutting out distractions, and leaving the recipient of her attention absolutely and totally certain of her complete attention. Many women -- and gentlemen -- envy  she moves through a room so easily, drawing out the great luminaries with her wit and engaging in discussions with great confidence.

He loves her for allowing him to bare that private fear, as much as he loves her younger sister for her steadfast devotion. Though he lacks family of his own, the Carters give much more than he deserves.

“Master Dugan more than most. I heard how few of the boys returned from their desperate flight from the fort. Several were killed or captured. A credit to Major Barnes holding them together so long, even with Lord Tarleton, the scoundrel, pursuing them.”

His eyes close at the name of his best friend. She hasn’t heard the story since her arrival in full. Peggy likely provided her an abbreviated version, for Dugan was shuttled off to the kitchen and sent on his way to General Washington’s tent. That his sister-in-law knows something unexpected hardly raises his eyebrows. She and Peggy are every inch their father’s daughters, privileged to know the outcome of his work, and damnably capable at learning slivers of valuable intelligence from officers’ wives and wealthy merchants sympathetic to the British cause. His hands naturally start to shake, and his heart tightens.

“Did your father know? About the raids?”  
  
Lips whitened, Sharon’s face hollows to the strain of the question planted directly at her dainty slippers. “Peggy never confided in you?”

“I found her letter by chance mixed among my papers. A mistake on Miss Hill’s part, for which she shall not be punished,” he says quickly.

“It is not my place,” Sharon whispers.

“General Carter receives reports from everywhere. Did he know about Major Barnes?” he asks again.

Fear wars with prudence. He imagines Bucky’s grin, the aplomb of their last evening together. Now he sees only a dark cell, a gaunt man, and the faceless officers in their lurid red coats looming over him, demanding information unbecoming of British gentlemen. Perhaps Tarleton himself orchestrates torture to extract what he can from Barnes.

Her eyes shine in the dim office. ”He knew what was left of Major Barnes’ unit broke out from Yorktown. The casualties, that Tarleton recaptured the major personally.”

“And General Washington?” No, the man he sees as his adoptive father would never betray him by denying that precious information. That Bucky fled a fortnight ago, and fell back into British hands.

Her pause confirms what his mind knows and heart despairs to feel. “Of course. General Washington receives regular messages. Steve, I beg you, do not be hasty. The news would be a devastating blow if the press or the public learned. They are doing everything in their power to recapture Yorktown and break the siege. Rochambeau and the French gather force on their march south with each passing day. The Marquis de Lafayette came through for you.”

He can hardly bear to hear the words, promises and platitudes to console his heart. But the bloody proof of hope and failure lies on his desk, mere inches from his nerveless fingers. He joined the Continental Army and the Revolution to make a difference. Even orphans have a place in the glorious new future, a dream shared by countless men and women, a dream on the verge of dying to greater numbers.

“Can I confide in you how I feel for a moment?” Steve asks. His head dipped low, he cannot meet her bright, laughing eyes or read the gentle concern transforming her lovely face. Safety lies in the distance afforded to them in their letters and the physical separation between them.

But Sharon approaches him and offers her hands, the flash of a golden band on her finger accusatory and warning both. Her fingers slip between his, soft and warm to the rough calluses he acquires in his pursuits of writing rather than properly fighting.

“Of course. I have always encouraged you to share the thoughts. Your mind contains so many, I should think you would never rest without speaking of them,” she says.

“Your sister speaks of me as the model of an aide-de-camp, in service to our venerated general. The men line up to put me on a pedestal, embellishing my service and eloquence,” he says. The words leak out of him in a trickle, one by one, placed with careful deliberation. “How can I keep on serving in this condition? He confines me to a tent or the city when every other man under his command has led men into a battle. I have my pride, Sharon.”

Her eyes are dangerously warm, her mouth straightened into a line. “Steven, you play an essential role.”

“Our hope of successes are fleeting. If we do not put a stop to the bleeding at Yorktown, the Revolution ends on the Chesapeake.”

“And you could die. How can the Continental Army make an all-out stand? Father has said the situation would be beyond dire if we commit all our forces to one final siege. Our forces cannot afford another slip.” She presses her hand to his cheek, a gesture of fondness that leaves a trace of her gentle rose perfume rising around him. Steve swallows. Sharon asks softly, “Would you leave Peggy a widow?”

Steve’s head sinks lower. He wants nothing more than to safeguard his bride’s safety and provide her a secure home, a place where they no longer worry about British punishment or levies. Death on the battlefield or the tent for the sick cannot be denied. Death doesn’t discriminate between officers or soldiers or nations in battle, taking them all equally.

“I could die here if our positions are overrun. But I’m still alive for a purpose, Sharon, I believe that truly.” He lifts his gaze to meet hers. “If the British take Yorktown, it won’t matter. We’re outgunned and outnumbered. If I’m to believe the reports, and now our young soldier, the Americans are this close to giving up, facing mad odds for their survival.” The awful question and uncertainty hangs in the air, thick as smoke from a plugged flue. He tastes the bitter words on his tongue. “What we will do if General Greene calls for surrender?”

Withdrawing her hand, Sharon wrings her fingers against her elegant dress. Rarely does she show such signs of agitation, certainly not in company. Her family depends too much on her steadiness. “He is a man of honour. He would never do so.”

“And if there is a mutiny?”

She crosses herself, turning away from him. “Don’t speak of such things.”

The departure, even a few steps, bruises him. If his lovely, pragmatic wife represents the constancy he craves, then Sharon is like the sun itself, brilliant and vibrant, sometimes almost overwhelming. She doesn’t understand him, in spite of his best attempts. He yearns to help her see how matters lie.  

“You have always been a dear advocate for me, and I beg that you listen a little longer. I am searching for the right words.” Steve sits back in his chair. His arms rest against his thighs, and the weight of weeks passing in ignorance lie heavily upon him. “There has never been anything but honesty between us. Major Barnes’ letter describes the desperate need for aid. If the Continental Army sits idle, we lose a critical advantage. As Master Dugan tells it, the British Navy blockades any water access. Hurricane season is nearly upon us, and the French cannot commit for more than two weeks before they head back to port. The supplies in the fort dwindle and every day the siege goes on, men go hungry and their shot grows lower. Meanwhile, the British supply themselves from New York and Georgia, raising fresh soldiers. If these colonies don’t rise up, we will have no Revolution left because our leaders will have to sue for peace and sign for terms. Cornwallis has the upper hand on us. The state of our nation is perilous.”

“Steven, do not tell me your heart and head entertain fantasies of dying like a martyr.” Her eyes wide, face pale, Sharon clasps her hands to her tightly laced bodice. “I will not countenance a future where your wife lives impoverished and your grave falls into squalor in some distant, forgotten field. You have a grand future in front of you. My father and General Washington learned through experience the need for restraint. You cannot be rash at such a critical moment.”

Rash, reckless. Words worthy of describing Major Barnes’ daring escape. “Rash, Sharon? The British praise Lord Tarleton for decisive action and bravery. Have you never heard how they crow about the way he overcomes daunting odds to rout the Americans? His Raiders leave a casualty list a mile long. The many dead, captured, and injured at their hands causes General Washington to shake his head and lose his temper. We need an act of daring to restore their hope.”  
  
Even frowning, she is a handsome woman. Her skirts whisper as she seats herself on a box, back rigid as a fireplace poker. The corset allows her no less dignity. “Tarleton is reason enough not to act hastily around Yorktown. He commands the most effective roaming force. We barely even know where he is.” Her teeth worry into the soft curve of her lower lip, and she hesitates long enough for him to understand she grapples with a weighty decision. A choice that leads her to speak softly. “My father uses his best men to keep tabs on the Tarleton and his Raiders. The British set them loose to sweep up any agents sympathetic to the Revolution. It’s a wonder Dugan made it through at all.”

“He is proof it can be done.”

“He is damn lucky, that is what he is.” She is unrepentant about swearing, his dear sister-in-law, and he cannot find the means to challenge her. “Reconnaissance has proven unfruitful. Without surveillance or signs of activity, you ride in blind. My father would call it mad.”

“With respect, I would refute General Carter’s opinions.”

“You are one man, Steve. They are miles behind our lines through some of the most heavily fortified territory in the country. The British are _looking_ for Americans. They expect us to stage a counterattack. Their ships in the harbour have guns trained north for our fleet, and they’ve laid in redoubts all around Yorktown.” Helplessly she raises her hands, anger stirring in her eyes and giving colour and flame-bright vigor to her words. “We would lose too many good men and we would lose you. I cannot bear the thought. They will be rescued when we win the war,” Sharon says.

“I think I could be of some assistance.” He rubs his hands together. “WIth good men, I could launch a strike. I have a strategy in mind. Something bold -- it would be enough.”

She goes to her knees in front of him. Silk pools around her in a dark jade circle, drawn into ripples the way a rock cast into a pond disturbs the mirror stillness. Lace laps over her knees, her sleeves thrown back in agitation. She wraps her arms around his legs, leaning forward, her brow pressed to his pants. “Steven, _please_.” Such emotion pours through her lovely voice in a way that Peggy never allows, the passionate older sister so very different from the controlled, disciplined younger.

Not for the first time, Steve wonders how his life may have differed if he sought Sharon’s hand instead.

She cries, “Don’t throw away your shot.”

This isn’t throwing away his shot but taking it. Acting will not destroy his future but make it. So many people rely upon him, and he lets them down by staying idle, safe and secure when his talents are badly needed elsewhere.

“Forgive me for upsetting you, Sharon.”  
  
“What do you plan to do? Your friend may not be well,” Sharon says. “My father and the general, the senior staff, are devising a strategy.”  
  
“It may be too late. As we speak -- and dawdle -- our allies to the south gather.” He takes the paper and tucks it into his jacket. Another bit of hasty searching brings up a pair of acceptable gloves, soon stuffed into the pocket.

“Steve.”

“You said your sister thought I was made for more than this. Did you mean that?” he asks.

Sharon dips her chin. The nod costs her as she struggles the fragments of her composure. Tears slip down her cheeks, pooling under her chin. The expensive silk used to dab at her eyes will be ruined by the watery stains, and she cares not at all. Another difference in their station, for the wealth her husband John Church commands is far above the Rogers’ household’s income.

He brushes his fingers gently down the side of her cheek, a daring move, almost intimate if not for the brotherly affection he holds for her. “Then let me go. I must be of use to the Continental Army, General Washington, and Major Barnes. This is not the first time Tarleton bloodied our noses. I will deal with him and restore our country’s honour. Can you tell your sister where I will go?”

“You won’t tell her yourself?” The soft resignation in her voice leaves Sharon spent, her weeping silent. Her shoulders slump another inch. He longs to lift her from the ground and dry her tears, reassuring her all will be well, but those gestures would be a gross overstepping of boundaries. He doesn’t believe them himself.

Her father knew two weeks ago that Bucky attempted his flight from Yorktown, and no one told Steve. He cannot escape that fact, the barb burning under his heart, and how deeply that wounds his soul. Pangs of quitting Peggy leave him in anguish. But he cannot possibly leave Major Barnes behind.

Who keeps Bucky’s flame if he will not act? He will see Bucky, it’s only a matter of time.

Steve shakes his head. “We haven’t time. I am running late, two weeks late.”

Sharon dries her eyes and nods. She gets to her feet with his assistance, his hands clasped around hers. She clears her throat, willing herself to sound strong and certain. Peggy will know about the source of sorrow soon enough. “I can do more than that,” she says.

“I’ll be back.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's letter to Steve draws inspiration from the [actual letters](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-02-02-0100) from John Laurens to Alexander Hamilton. They maintained an active, charged, and outright spicy correspondence throughout their lives.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News of Major Barnes' daring escape from Yorktown leading the Howling Commandos -- Gabe Jones, James Falsworth, Jacques Dernier, and Dum Dum Dugan among them -- through British lines reaches General Washington's camp. The loss of Major Barnes to the greatest bogeyman in the British Army, Major Banastre Tarleton, precipitates a crisis for American forces. Peggy and Sharon muster their spy network to aid the Revolution.

Steve stares out into the growing twilight. The worst hour to begin travel, but riding ahead into the lengthening violet autumn would put him ahead of the traffic heading south and north to Philadelphia on the morrow. After dawn, the road teems with soldiers and farmers going about their business. No matter the state of the young nation, commerce refuses to be halted by something as insignificant as a war.

Nothing holds him back save goodbye. Philip sees to the final arrangements of his goods and he dispatched messages to his brothers in arms, friends of Major Barnes and himself, ahead of Nicholas fetching his horse.

Activity bustles around General Washington's camp. He awaits the summons in a spotless second-floor bedroom turned into a parlour. A patriotic lawyer turned over his fine house for the general's use. Tents and lanterns dot the dark sea of activity gathered in the forecourt and out to the street.

Once more he checks his reflection in the window, for the room lacks a looking glass. He must be his best tonight, and use all his powers of persuasion to convince General Washington to support a raid on Yorktown. Freeing good men of the southern army and retrieving General Nathanael Greene will improve morale and strike a blow to the British. Bloodying Lord Tarleton's priggish nose won't hurt matters either.

Dugan arrived before him, he knows that much. Barton slipped in to bring a hasty update. The senior staff questioned the poor soldier at length about his testimony and sent him off to the mess for a proper meal.

Steve cannot afford to throw away his shot. If the general refuses to bless his campaign, he still means to go.

His spectral reflection in the pane reveals a man of many cares. He wears his golden hair in a queue for comfort rather than style, the way Bucky does, but the French style suits him. Some -- like Stark -- call him a coxcomb and conceited, not realizing he cares little for appearances. But if he turns his head just so, he resembles the Major in more than hairstyle. Tilting the candle away from the window, the ruddy gold artificially darkens to something closer to Major Barnes’ warm brown.

What would his wife say about him speaking with ghosts? Signs he works too hard, assuredly, and might wish to take counsel with the Lord at church. He feels no special calling to attend service. His heart is unable to find peace with God. The choice rests with an earthly power.

“Tonight, come hell or high water, I mean to set out for you.” He presses his forehead to the cool pane. “We shall not be alone. My dearest Barnes, I must get through to Yorktown. I shall sit down with Washington to plead your case as you have for me. Grant me your charm and bravery.” With one fingertip, he draws an invisible curving B on the windowpane, the very same way that Bucky prefers with the flourishes and broad swoops. “I will not stop until I’m there.”  
  
It feels good to say the words aloud. He imagines Bucky on the other side, listening through the window. He has no one else to confide in, with a great decision ahead of him. The storm started to brew as soon as he arrived. Another aide-de-camp ushered him upstairs to cool his heels.

He hears a bell chime below and a door open. The time comes to make his declaration to the general and the senior staff. His feet and legs feel cool in trepidation. 

His reflection waits for him, patient and still. One last time to gather himself and finish this prayer to Major Barnes, to himself. “They think my ambition is folly and that I’m a massive pain. Railing on about the cause in the southern states, asking for a chance to lead men.”

Brushing his hands over his coat, he carefully straightened up the buttons. Appearing smart and respectable in his uniform matters to General Washington. He prefers his men act and look the part. As Steve doffs his hat, Barton opens the door to the dim hallway.

“It's your time,” Barton says.

“How is he?”

“I've never seen the general so despondent.” Barton shakes his head. “Word got out somehow. He expects Congress to order him to attack the British forces.”

Steve needs a moment to find the means to reply as he and the blond scout walk together. “A good sign, I hope?”

Whatever small flare of hope surges in his heart dies with the shake of Barton's head. “New York. Politicians think if we roost the British fleet from Long Island, the future of the nation is secured.”  
  
The general's staff has opinions about the puffed-shirt delegates bestowing lamentable orders on Washington. The nicest thing Steve can say is the stuffed men are probably secure in upstate Pennsylvania far from the front. “We're too fragile to lose another fight in New York.”   
  
As they reach the double doors into the dining room turned over for all matters of importance, Barton blocks the way. “Steve, listen. There's only way for us to win this. Provoke the British.”

“I don't intend to engage, and I'll strike by night.”

“Better pray the French ships show up while you're harrying the outer lines.”

The scout opens the door and Steve steps forward to meet his destiny.

 

* * *

 

“The issue on the table is whether we retaliate against the British Legion. Do we provide aid and men for Captain Rogers to a raid on Yorktown, or do we wait for an opportunity in the future?” The succinct statement by General Washington settles over the room, leaving silence. Gravitas worthy of the meeting is settled upon them.

Clint Barton is the first to speak up. “Old Tarly deserves a punch in the nose if we can deliver it.”

Some of the men nod. They all know Steve, down to every inch of his boots. His service carries the prestige of General Washington's personal commendations. His father-in-law lends him importance, and none of that matters when it comes down to detaching men and resources from stretched supply lines and dwindling reserves.

“I'm not talking about to storm the fort and completely free all the soldiers. A light force, properly equipped, can break through the redoubts and reach the wall. Major Barnes showed us how to get in and out.” Steve warms to the topic. He has had little time to refine the better points of a plan, but he knows the broad strokes. “We use cover of night to strike at them. A hit on their supply line from the Virginia side to distract the riders will give us all the cover we need.”

He already gave them the details of his plan, battered by questions all around. Washington leans over the head of the table, examining the rough map below him.

“A quick strike isn't the choice I would go with,” another of the senior staff says. “The risk of capture or failure is too high. All it takes is a keen watchman to spot you. You'd be soon as captured.”

Steve shakes his head. “With all due respect, that's the point of the diversion. My pick of men, sir, calls for the same force who proved at the Battery in New York. We were just as quick and stealthy then.”

“They stole British cannons from under British noses,” Knox says. Henry Knox and Steve don't always see eye to eye after Steve turned down an offer to work for him. The show of support bolsters his confidence.

One man in a cluster engaged in furtive murmurs stands apart. Steve turns to face him, and his jaw sets. Tony Stark is the last person he wants to debate a point with, not when time drains away.

He cuts an impressive figure in his uniform, smart and tidy. His slow smile and measured look hold the men in the room.

“Major Stark, you have the floor,” General Washington says.

“I know Captain Rogers is here and he would ride out hell for leather to recover our men this very moment. I do not question his bravery. I do question the sense of such a raid now.” Tony tugged on his sleeve. “The revolution is on its knees. We need money and guns for half a chance at defeating the British. I can spin things wholecloth for you, gentlemen, but not without French funds and allies. Comte de Grasse promised us naval aid, money, and support.”

They have no way of knowing when Grasse’s ships will land, if they land at all. Half the correspondence flowing into the camp comes from lookouts and spies stationed along the seaboard, hunting for the French ships. Everyone knows the British Navy dispatches sloops and commandeered merchant craft to do the same. Everything comes down to a battle of timing.

“We lose our advantage if we wait. Tarleton and Cornwallis don't know that we know about the breakout,” Steve says.

“We lose far more by acting recklessly. As I was saying, waiting gives us opportunities. Our craftsmen still need to work on producing a new cannon design that may put the whole siege to rest. I am refining the development of better weapons for our closest regiments. Time buys us a better chance of success. Think on this, the new troops and irregulars will reach us as the French do. Isn't it sensible to delay from showing our hand prematurely to when we might strike decisively?” Stark fires a withering look at him, buttoned up and disapproving. The interruption may be ungentlemanly but so be it. Lives are at stake.

Murmurs of agreement follow the sensible course, and sensible will get his friends killed. The Revolution hands by a thread. Steve shuts his eyes.

“Captain Rogers?” Washington calls him to attention.

Steve spreads his hands wide. “Major Stark’s suggestion overexaggerates. Are we bringing the nation to the brink with a raid?” He shook his head, fixing his attention upon Washington. “This war has gone on long enough. I am suggesting a way to hearten our allies and recovering our soldiers without risking the Continental Army. You don't need to supply us with a detachment. I have men willing to support the cause. We all know what we ride into.”

“A massacre?” Stark pounces on the suggestion. “You have no control over the outcome of this. We may lose more men than we gain.”

“I am well aware of the risk and the potential gain. Dugan's testimony seals my determination to make a mark.”

Steve straightens under their scrutiny. “What purpose do I have if not to get this job done?”

“Ten men can't do what a hundred or a thousand can, Captain. With all due respect, you're courting death.” Stark puts his fist on the table. “I doubt anyone disputes your readiness to command men, but what point is there if you receive the business end of a bayonet? Lafayette isn't waiting in Chesapeake Bay. Revolution is--”

“Uncertain. I understand, Major. We do what has to be done for America.” Steve bows his head, his fist pressed to his chest.   
  
“We will call a brief recess,” Washington says.

Everything hinges on one man.

 

* * *

 

“Son, I cannot condone your death or capture in the hands of the British.” Washington stands to his full, impressive height as Steve clenches his fists at his sides. “You will have your chance to lead soon. Wait for the French. Major Stark may speak bluster and fury, but he has a point.”

“General, please reconsider. These are brave men who put their lives on the line. They seized the moment.”

“Your moment is not now. Our forces are scattered to the winds.” Washington's frustration burns through the room. “Rochambeau will be here within a week.”

“For an assault on New York,” Steve says, knowing he betrays his information. Surprise barely registers on his commanding officer's face.

Washington pushes aside his chair and walks over. “Throwing five thousand men into battle in among best defended terrain in our country isn't sensible, Steven. The British are entrenched and hold the seas for now. We would not stand a good chance of victory.I cannot sanction sending them into certain death.”

“Understood, sir.”

“I bid you not to go. Wait. The battlefield is shifting. As hard as it is, I counsel patience. You will have your chance, I promise you that.”

“I can't, sir.”

Every one of Washington's staff knows the rules. Directly disobeying the general's orders could be cause for worse than a charge of dereliction of duty. His titanic rages, though rare, turn Washington into a living tempest. Not even his wife Martha calms them easily. If he so much as reads what lies in Steve's heart, he will do worse than banish Captain Rogers. The brig or being shackled for a week might seem like light punishment.

Washington gestures. “Go back to your wife. She and her sister are in the rear parlour.”

Steve startles enough to leave the fugue of anger and determination settled over him. “My wife? Why would Mrs. Rogers be here?”  
  
“Why do you think? Soft diplomacy. Mrs. Church and Mrs. Rogers are still Carter's girls. Made from steel and forged in petticoats. They appealed for your cause.” George finally looks his years, setting aside his hat to scratch his scalp. The burdens of his office leave marks on him, subtle, but clear to his staff. Steve sees his exhaustion, the long hours, the deprivation of hope. For that reason alone, he knows he needs to act.

“I thank you for listening to them.” Steve nods.

“Like as not they would have rooted me from my bed had I refused. Take heart. Your chance will come, Steven.”

Truer words never spoken. His chance is already being saddled in the yard.

 

* * *

 

He cannot disobey a direct order so soon. Steve retreats to the rear parlour, one much more comfortable than any other room as standards around the camp go.

So much energy bubbles in him that he paces through the room. The general's imperturbable wife shoos him upstairs to freshen up while she brings out tea for their small party. By all rights, he should have a conversation in his own small household, but Martha insists upon hospitality and so he stays.

He rebuttons his coat and straightens his hat. His gloves look splendid. All this time he could spend riding rather than lingering. Every sound leaves him on edge, as he is worn thin, the vision of dark cells and starving men carved into his thoughts. Surely no preacher in the pulpit can convey such images of dread so readily as his own benighted imagination bestows upon him.

He braces against the awful likelihood of a summons from the wroth general or, worse, another on the senior staff to announce his imminent house arrest. No, he could not tarry.

Downstairs, activity builds in volume and intensity. Doors creak open and shut. The drafty house lacks good soundproofing. Chinks in the walls permit sounds of the city to percolate through at all hours. Not even the General's borrowed headquarters is free from the chaos. Steve freezes upon hearing a childish giggle answered by soaring laughter tinkling from the foyer. Time runs out.

He stares out at the dark, speaking to a man an ocean away.

“I received your letter from Dugan’s hands. Did you intend this, to bring me to you?” The question escapes as a hesitant whisper. “I’m coming for you with this invitation. Hold on. Hold on, my dearest Barnes. I’ll only be a moment away.”

From the foyer, Peggy’s voice lifts in a bright, lingering call. “Steven, come down! There’s a little surprise before supper.”

Does he truly mean to sneak out of this house like a common thief? He swallows a pang of fear. A private departure with his wife over dinner in their own home sounds far more pleasing than walking into a room with both Carter sisters arrayed against him. He’ll take the British every time.

He finds his voice and replies, “Can it wait?”

“Steven, come downstairs. Sharon just arrived with the children.”

An unfair ploy on his sweet wife’s part, but he cannot fault her. If Sharon brought the children, she knowingly sweetened the General to his cause. It still failed. He cannot hold her to blame any more than Peggy.

He owes them this much of a goodbye. The Church children, already four and two, are well loved in the Rogers household. Without little ones of his own, he lavishes affection upon the tots. The long absences and their time across the sea keep him and Peggy from spoiling the children often. His resolve near shatters as he steps out to the landing. Steeling himself against the social call, he heads into the parlour. Already Martha Washington ushers the little blond-headed boy into the kitchen. They all dote on children, a rare sight about the headquarters.

The quiet left in the children’s wake agrees with their mother, who removes her gloves. The tea service set out is the Washingtons’ second best, only right given the company and Sharon Church’s social rank. Sweet notes almost orange in their sharp clarity greet him, a soothing reminder of civility. Both women remaining take in his coat and draw their own conclusions. Neither Carter daughter, regardless of their name, lacks wit. On the contrary, they possess too much.

Peggy lowers her teacup to the table. Turning her face away, she busies herself with an assortment of small dishes, tea and honey and cream in small amounts. He cannot send her a look of regret or thanks so. Forgiveness will remain for his letters.

“Sharon,” he whispers. She smiles as she sees him coming fully into the light where the lanterns best reflect his aspect in warm halos of bronze and copper.

“Steven,” she trills. “It’s good to see your face.”

Such positivity in the face of failure does not become him. He tries not to blush. “Hello.”

Peggy presses close to his chair and laid a saucer on the table, a cup for him freshly poured. He takes this as his cue to sit, and she pushes the cream to him. “Sharon, tell this man that other officers are going with their families upstate.”

His stomach turns to lead shot and sinks somewhere past his ankles. Not this tired old argument. They held it several times over the past month. General Carter advocates for a strategic retreat to the states in the Northeast, certain in their security.

“Many say the south is lost,” Sharon says. Peggy must know of their conversation in his study, but they retreat to the same familiar argument.

“We can stay with my father,” Peggy says. “He has the room and a man of your station would be well-received in the camp. Washington is seriously considering it, We brought the proposal privately.”

Sharon sinks onto the padded seat gratefully. A momentary look spared for her heeled shoes suggests she might go to stocking feet right then and there, and Steve averts his eyes for modesty’s sake. He may be in a private home. Sharon is a lady and deserves treatment as such by even her brother-in-law. “And the children can stay with Mother in Albany. Even with the British occupying New York, they’ll be safe.”

“It’s the wisest course. Do what you need to keep them safe, Sharon. I would hate to think of my dear niece or nephew unhappy.” He bends to check his boots, pulling them high. It helps to avoid their eyes.

“Come away with us for the autumn,” Peggy says. “You could do real good, Steve. My father has work that cannot wait, important work that might turn the tide. I cannot speak of the project he has in the pot, that’s for him to do. But he wants you to know the offer is there.”

Old stories of Jacob wrestling with angels and doughty, bearded heroes facing terrible choices always inspired him as a boy. They strike close to a need to prove himself and leave his mark, he a man of no great name or land. His dear wife hands him nearly everything he could want on a plate. General Carter only takes the best for his intelligence service. True, he has Major Stark, a man whose views on everything were peppered by inconstancy and flimflam. A promotion there would make his future, albeit at the cost of leaving behind the family around General Washington. Temporarily, mind. If they rescued the Revolution, he can hope for a permanent post and his father-in-law’s strong voice as an advocate. He won't be defying his commanding officer.

Albeit at the cost of giving up on Major Barnes.

His wife beams that rare smile, summer sunshine on his loyal American rose, and her bright, golden sister lifts her face. Together they make such an impression to stop a man’s heart. A future, wrought by a powerful family and a legacy in name, children, and real good done for America.

Bucky might live. He might die. More than likely the fall of Yorktown would spell a surrender, an exchange of hostages. As an officer, he would be one of the first returned. Supposing the British played by the rules and Lord Tarleton doesn’t have a hand in a convenient accident, a festering wound. The blackguard couldn’t be trusted and Dugan made clear the leader of the British Legion took a personal interest in his best friend.

_I can't betray who I am. Will you ever understand, Peggy?_

The silence goes on too long. They watch him hopefully and, as the embers die down to a smolder, Peggy drops her gaze first to her cup. She has no bone of superstition anywhere in her practical comportment, but to him, she seems to read the dregs in the weak tea. What she deciphers in the cup, her composed expression fails to show.

He already guesses. Death, one way or the other, if he stays an hour longer. Coat whispering against his legs, he rises from his seat. “I would like to go, but…”

“Steven, wait.”

“I will try to get away.”

“Your favourite older sister reminds you that we’re in your corner. I know you’re so very busy and your work is critically important.” Sharon’s eyes glisten, topazes in the firelight, a warm blue too bright for her fair lashes. “But this offer can’t wait. Your wife can’t wait for your return.”

Peggy is made of stuff too stern to allow her to weep in public or the company of her elder, bright sister, the beauty of the family. She presses her hands into her lap, refusing to rise with him in a silent reproof for his behaviour. The longer she holds her prim composure, the more Steve yearns to join her and wrap his arms around her, reassure her all will be well.

There will be time for that. Time after he deals with Tarleton. With the right men, they might even arrange a parlay. Peace in words is something he wishes for and doubts is easily attained by such a scoundrel as Tarleton. The General would be furious. He is sure to lose his position. Consequences for later, considered when the future felt more stable than a heap of sand before the turning tide.

“Then I wish you both a happy journey and safe retreat. Don’t stop until you reach General Carter. Philadelphia is not bound to be safe.” He tugs the brim of his hat, though he needs to stow that along with his luggage on his horse. “Make your way swiftly. I shall only be a moment away.”

A sound of dismay leaves Peggy. Sharon rushes to her side, shooting a look of wounded betrayal. “After what the General said, you’re not joining us? I came all this way.”

“I have to try at Yorktown.”

“The Major?” Sharon asks.

“We’ll lose if I don’t try to help them. We need Greene, Barnes, and the rest. And I cannot stand by why Tarleton torments them..”

He wills them to understand. Peggy mirrors the intensity of her gaze from the safety of her sister’s embrace. Disappointment rolls off them in waves. Their clasped hands meet against their silks as they clutch one another.

Sharon resolves herself, lifting her chin. “Well, you are set upon this proposal. Luck, then.” Her courage tumbles apart and her shoulders drop as her sister leans in closer. A fight for mutual comfort plays out feet from him and Steve can do nothing with his course set. “I’ll miss your face. So will the children.”

“Your duty calls you.” Peggy is an admirable commander of the household, a competent soldier’s wife in every aspect. When they spoke their vows, she knew exactly what life she would enter. Steven Rogers follows a path already laid down by her father. Tears brim in her dark eyes, but she meets his gaze unflinching. “Courage and fortitude go with you.”

“As Mama used to say, screw your courage to your sticking place.” Her sister sighs. The ribbons on her hat shiver, sliding down the swan length of her neck. “Get your man from Yorktown and come upstate. Every last fellow helps. And listen to that equerry of yours. He has more sense than all your friends put together.”

Steve waits no longer, not with the faction waiting outside the camp. His people know he will ride, and they make their own farewells. Being late is no option. He rushes for the door, leaving the Carter sisters behind. No farewell, this is not a time for such. It's a strategic retreat, to be sure, if effective. Outside Nicholas waits with his horse. They both stamp, equine and man, impatient with his belated arrival.

Steve swings up in haste, settling his hat one-handed upon his head. “You know where to ride, and the condition of the coming road. Mr. Fury, you do not need to come on my account. Remain with my lady wife and serve her as you would.”

Nicholas sniffs at him. “Of course I will. But Phillip will be attending you. He is already there.”

An unexpected boon. Steve nods, his throat working.

“Godspeed, Nicholas.”

“If I had to choose, just come back alive,” Nicholas says. He holds up a sack broad as Steve's shoulders. “You pack terribly. I took some liberties to reduce the weight. This, however, your wife insists upon.”

Reaching up, Steve grasps the sack by the leather strap. The bulky size betrays the light weight. His eyebrows rise, and he starts to work the knots free.

“No.” Nicholas’ bark halts him. “Not here. Look at it later and know Major Stark will have no warm thoughts for you after this. Mrs. Rogers near twisted his arm out of its socket on your behalf. Honour her efforts, if you will not honour her words.”

“Her wishes,” Steve replies.

Sharon's promise seems to take shape in front of him, in an odd plate-shaped gift. Peggy gives him her blessing. Perhaps it's the tea service to smack Tarleton over the head with.   

“I always follow them.” Nicholas smacks Steve's horse on the rump, sending them into motion. His dark gaze glitters in the night. “Now begone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Howling Commandos and portions of the Avengers make their debut among the aides-de-camp of General Washington in Philadelphia. I may do a spinoff to show what James Falsworth, Gabe Jones, Dum Dum Dugan, and the rest were doing under leadership of Major Barnes before they broke free. So many possibilities here, since Falsworth makes an outstanding spy, Jacques Dernier clearly serves as another bridge to the French along with Philip, and on and on.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excuse me, but are you ~~Aaron Burr~~ Tony Stark, sir?

Steve pulls his riding cloak tighter to him. Already in the gathering darkness, a coolness steals out from the early autumn night. Lifting the hood gives a measure of protection against his ears turning cold. The hood presents a bit of a conundrum, leaving him with a somewhat rakish appearance. He simply cannot afford to lose his hat when he guides his loyal grey mare to a canter once they reach the ragged fields fringing Philadelphia.

Stubble in regular rows lies ahead, evidence of the harvest taken in before marauding armies of British or American persuasion claim their dues. Hardship awaits the farmer and the soldier both if the promising bite to the air that transforms his breath to a silver cloud portends a cold winter.

Peggy would check the almanac and confer with her father over the best route. He imagines she consulted that dog-eared tome many times before consigning her fate to upstate New York and the safety of the Carter home in Albany. Every rolling step of his brave horse takes him further from his lady wife and trusted general.

Truly the world has turned upside down.

Large houses turn small, stonework replaced by wood slats and finally humble shacks for the lowly farm workers. Low white tents mark an area claimed by Continental Army irregular, the cook fire stinking of smoke a mile off. Crossroads slice off at sharp angles, commercial thoroughfares bright with lanterns and Philadelphians, a spirited people determined to live to the best their imperiled situation allows. Steve knows the people of Charleston and Savannah too tried to make merry day by day, visiting friends and taking meals from the taverns. Now the British flag flies overhead and the people curb their speech for fear of hanging for sedition.

To the British, the whole of the north and middle colonies represent treasonous citizens, not enemy combatants. They do not receive or deserve the same protections as a Frenchman on the sea or a Dutchman in battle. While General Washington insists on fair treatment for British captors and their allies alike, the same doesn't happen on the other side.

Bucky might be tortured or stowed in one of the wretched prison ships, a derelict hulk scuttled by General Greene during the siege on Yorktown. It sticks in Steve's craw that his best friend would be locked up in one of those death traps. The ships are squalid and barely seaworthy, attended sporadically by agents who bring lukewarm water and moldy bread. Prisoners of war die of neglect under their blind eyes turned to the shore. They are places without hope or grace.

He settles into the saddle, rolling with the mare's gait. An experienced rider, he knows how to match her rhythm, sliding into the arch of her back. They move as one creature of shared will through the cool night,

His horse beats a steady tattoo against the ground and her soft whuffles add to the percussive melody. He loses himself in the moment right up until a cloaked man steps out of the crossroads opposite a market and nearly ends up trampled.

The grey tosses her head and her hooves dance over the ground. She shears sideways in a nervous dance away from the swinging lantern aimed for her nose.

“Hoy!” Steve grips the reins hard and turns the horse's head, forcing her to dance in a circle out of the liquid golden glow through the smoky shutter. “Easy, sweet Valkyrie, easy.”

She stamps her hooves, churning up the mud into a thick morass. The man wielding the lantern dashes back a step to avoid the whiplash of her tail, and holds his ground.

“I did not see you there, man!” Steve says.

“Forgive me, sir.” The man wears a rider's cloak much like him, and the hazy glow spitting out of the parted doors of the lantern obscure his features.  
  
“Have a care. I wouldn't wish to trample you.”

The dancing horse calms some, too accustomed to the duties of her master and the frequent activity in Washington's camp to spook easily. Steve strokes the proud arch of her neck to soothe her, guiding her to settle. He gestures. “Please, go ahead.”  
  
The lantern dropping leaves the stranger's face still bathed in charcoal strokes of darkness. He approaches by a step, gesturing. “Captain Rogers, I heard the news.”

Steve sucks in his breath. “Philip? What are you doing out here?” The questions tumble forth before he remembers to close his mouth. Anyone could be listening in the street. The general expects his aides-de-camp to show discretion in all situations. His father-in-law is no less stringent about matters of security and secrecy. “You should be back at the house.”  
  
Philip smiles. His thin mouth barely lifts. In his grave grey-blue eyes, Steve reads the inevitable response: _And you should too._

“Trying to catch you before you departed, sir.”

“Why?” Steve asks.

They stand close enough not to arouse attention, his servant slipping closer to the horse.

“I heard the news. That you entered the general's camp and attempted to reach a compromise for General Greene's soldiers in Yorktown,” Philip says.

Soon enough Steve's failure will be the talk of the camp. Someone will talk to the others, servants or underlings scurrying off with a tale of Dugan's daring escape and his own failure to secure a meaningful response. His fingers itch in their gloves. Every minute delayed threatens his discovery. “I can't say.“

“Give yourself some credit, sir. You opened doors that were previously closed.”  
  
“I fail to see how, Philip.” He is so tired and he has barely begun. “I did not emerge with an agreement for Major Barnes or General Greene.”

“Then you are out for an evening ride to clear your thoughts?” Philip raises his eyebrows and his brow wrinkles.

Better for everyone to think so. Steve nods. His reticence does a poor job fails to dissuade or send his manservant on his way.

Before he can issue a command, Philip holds up a work-worn hand. “Sir, what if you could solve one problem with another?”  
  
“I do not gather what you mean.”

“You want to reach Yorktown in a timely fashion.”

Steve bites his cheek rather than speak and betray himself. Too late to avert his gaze, he is certain the other man knows his intentions. Not as if he concealed them, but still, his gear speaks for itself. His grey mare whickers at another horse passing by on the far side of the street, and he touches his forelock out of habit.

“It's safe to speak.”  
  
“I do not know what you mean.”  
  
“Captain, you could win a victory in the south by working with Major Stark.”  
  
“No.” The slight shake of his head throws specks of gold from under Steve's retreat hood. “He would never work with me. He denied me.”  
  
Philip smiles. “For the right proposal, he might. He is a businessman before a soldier.”  
  
“I have nothing to offer. My honour is not for sale, and you know the state of the household coffers.” Steve grits his teeth. Reminders of poverty and the grinding hardships of his childhood never lie far beyond reach, and he dreads falling back on those hard times more than anything.

The manservant's face softens. “In private, he listens far better than in public. For quid pro quo, he could offer passage.”  
  
“Stark has ships, I know that. He certainly won't risk taking loyal men south into British cannonfire.” Wrapping the reins around his hand, he points Valkyrie's nose for the road again. “I see no advantage, Philip. Go home.”  
  
“If you will grant me a moment of insight?” Philip's voice changes a fraction and only that, sliding out of English into its true origins. He excels at hiding his French accident, nearly as much as Major Barnes can erase his New York origins.

The revelation still takes Steve by surprise, though he has heard it on occasion. “Philip--”  
  
“Stark relies on goodwill of Lafayette, Rochambeau, and others of my countrymen. With your good standing, he gains by cooperation.”

Good men, all of them. The brave Frenchmen need no reason to fight in this foreign land for a cause not their own. But wholeheartedly they embrace the cause of liberty and freedom. Their arms and wealth sustain the revolution; their men lead armies and buoy spirits of common soldiers who mere months ago farmed or cobbled or made cabinets. How direly he misses his allies in times of need, nearly as keen a wound to his spirit as Major Barnes himself.

He draws in his breath, looking away. Emotions and passions run too hot tonight. Will no one take pity upon him? “I doubt very much that Stark cares. Grasse is barricaded in the Caribbean, Rochambeau crawling in the woods of Maryland, and Lafayette barely holding the northern line. What can they do for him?”

Philip crosses himself and presses his mouth to his knuckles. “Not everything can be settled in front of a committee. Hasten to his room and ask. Wouldn't you wish to travel faster?”  
  
“And I'll provide him a victory?” Steve says a touch too bitterly.

“General Greene, _mon capitaine_ , and the thanks of the French.”  
  
Never let it be said that his manservant lacks conviction or courage. Manipulative, too, though debating a Frenchman takes a special blend of recklessness. The art of the compromise requires something other than holding his nose or dousing his pride. “God help me, I just want to serve my country and save them.”  
  
Philippe nods. “Let me show you the way.”

* * *

 

Steve takes a deep breath. He prays this will turn out well. Valkyrie is barely tied to a rail, allowing for a rapid getaway. In approaching Stark's private rented rooms, he already risks too much. Any number of enterprising men aware of his presence could report their valuable information to General Washington, scuppering his night ride.

No Paul Revere is he. Captain Rogers hangs by a thread. He closes his fist and knocks upon the door, then waits a full eight minutes in agony. Philip remains by his side, standing firmly to the left, cautioning patience in a low tone.

“Is he expecting you, Monsieur de Courson?”

The slight sharpness to his voice must register for his manservant steps back. He means not to slight as good a man as Philip -- Philippe de Courson, French spy in service to General Carter and his daughter. A loyal friend. How many faces does he wear?

“No, sir.”

The door opens moments later, as though karma toys with them all. The house where they wait holds a certain opulence, much like the dandy of a man in a smoking coat outlined against the doorway. Steve catches a glimpse of polished wood floors and an oil painting on the wall.

Major Stark is a man of means, and he inherited considerable sums from his deceased parents. An orphan, like Rogers himself, yet their circumstances could not be more different if he conjured a story for the stage. And there the major waits, the scent of tobacco about him, and a hint of charcoal smudging his cheekbone and his fingers.

Whatever feelings he holds towards the man, Steve buries. He thinks of his best friend, taking in the sights of the British siege, if Barnes sees anything at all.

“Steven?” Stark asks. He sweeps a look between both the gentlemen on his doorstep and steps back, allowing them entry to the vestibule of the two-storey home.

As much as he would rather not, Steve sweeps his hood back and steps inside. As his faith second, Philip follows a step behind.

“Can we confer, Stark, sir?” Steve asks.

“It's the middle of the night.”

“I haven't any other time.”

Stark shuts the door behind them and neglects to set the lock. On a table some distance beyond lies the remains of a cold meal on a fine porcelain plate, a box of tools, and the scattered guts of some machine Steve is at pains to identify.

Their host turns back to them. “Is this a private matter?”

“Yes, and it's important to me.” Steve stays in the vestibule. He's running out of time. With his eyes up and expression clear, perhaps he makes clear the urgency without relying on words alone.

“Do you want a glass of anything?” Stark moves on as both men shake their heads. “What is it you need?”

  
“Stark, you are a man of fine resources.”

Flattery never fails with the major. He primps and preens under adulation from his peers. Even from Steve, this earns a faint nod of agreement out of Tony Stark. “Yes, well?”

Entertaining such a man does not come easily. He thinks of Bucky again. The very scent of offal and sweat mingle in his mind, too real a note for him to avoid feeling ill. Survival of his best friend and the rest of the southern Continental Army could hinge on him. He failed once, and he will not fail again.

Pride swallowed whole, Steve spreads his hands slowly to his sides. “Your tactics are finely honed and executed. I haven't your experience by half. You're proven in battle. I need a strong defense and you have the solution.“

“No.” Stark barks his answer, shaking his head. He rakes his fingers through his hair. “The General denied you.”

“Hear me out.”

“This is a terrible idea. You have no idea the trouble you're in if you are caught.”

Stark speaks the truth. No amount of patience or counsel from the other senior staff will soothe Washington's wroth mood when and if he discovers the members of his adoptive family -- the Family -- collude against his express wishes, no matter the outcome. With their general capable of titanic rages, it's best not to consider defiance even in the privacy of one's own thoughts.

Nudged slightly by Philip as a silent testament of support, Steve makes his leap of faith. He came this far. In a duel, he is sure he could defeat the major -- though he all but signs away his future if they come to that. Washington despairs of men dueling and all but banned it in Philadelphia. Their situation may be desperate tonight, but not severe enough.

“Believe me, Stark, the consequences rest heavily upon my shoulders. Our situation is dire enough I must try.” He raises his head to meet those stunned, disbelieving eyes. “I will not be caught. I need a means to reach the York River anonymously.”  
  
“No way.”

Philip presses his hand to the door. Stark's face darkens. “Anonymity is our best defense. You have connections with smugglers and privateers, Major. Don’t think that I would judge you, i do not. But here is a valuable avenue. They can take us ashore.”  
  
“No one will make it,” Stark says. “You don't understand. The British Navy blockades the port--”

“They still need supplies, don't they?” Steve asks quietly.

“Bread, beef, and bullets, brought by neutral merchants,” Philip adds.

Stark bares his teeth in a white snarl absent of sound and burning with fury. “And if they fail?”  
  
“Stark, that's why we need you,” Steve says.

Philip pulls on his cuffs. Like a good manservant, he avoids making direct eye contact. “You know the best.”

The forgotten remnants of the meal call to their host, and Major Stark strides that way in an explosive burst of motion. He tears a chunk of bread and mops up the gravy, stuffing the portion into his mouth. Chewing, he pulls three or four papers from the mess atop the table. His fastidious manners and prompt efficiency war with one another.

“The defensive situation is a mess.” He tosses aside another page, and then carries the handful back, thrusting them at Steve.

The blond captain can scarcely believe the abrupt manner of the major. Going from cold reception to brittle estrangement and now collusion makes no sense. But such is the price of genius, for the major shifts his direction as serves his inscrutable purposes. Philip takes the papers and hands them to him.

Taking a few moments to scan through the reports, Steve needs no more effort. He knows the missives from the southern agents and soldiers as well as anyone.

Stark continues, “Boats can barely make it down the Chesapeake. British officers seize what they like, and their agents board unpredictably. _That_ is what you mean to enter. All that before you even reach the blockade, somehow disembark, lay siege to a fort through British lines, and rescue starving men. All with Lord Tarleton running about with his riflemen and cavalry. You won’t last long with them looking for you.”

Putting the pages into order, Steve lays them onto a side table cluttered in mismatched gloves. “So the plan needs a bit of amendment. No hiding in a barrel. Can't we stowaway?”

Shock halts Stark from shoving another chunk of gravy-sopped bread into his mouth. “On a ship full of contraband? You might as well throw your life away. If the British catch you, you’ll be in chains on a boat or hung from a branch.”  
  
“Then I'll board as a sailor.” Steve pulls his cloak around him. The facsimile of warmth does nothing to conceal a shudder running through his body, despite his linen shirt and jacket. Stark’s rented home lacks much by way of a fire outside the makeshift workshop and clearly whatever staff came with the house retired or scurry about doing chores out of sight.  
  
Stark eyes him up all the same, alighting on the glimpse of his jacket and his powder horn poking out against the neat fall of his leather traveling cloak. “Pardon me for saying, Rogers, but you don't look like a sailor.”

Philip helps his cause not one bit by laughing behind his hand, disguising the noise in his sleeve and coughing. Too late -- he already attracts attention, not that the manservant cares one whit.

Broad in the shoulder and much too well built, Steve may have to grant Major Stark that truth. He looks the part of an officer, which is partly why his predicament without a command torments him so. Men expect him to lead and he lacks any opportunity. “We have to start with something. Give me options if you don't like mine.”

“Go home.” Stark turns his back to them.

His intention clear and loud, he will offer them no help. A wasted half hour then, trying to reason with an essentially unreasonable man, puts them at risk. Steve expects the rivers and ports halfway to Virginia to be manned by Washington’s agents on the lookout. Perhaps for the better, this sleight of hand opens up an inland option that may be slower and riskier with the Redcoats and their Native allies running about. But he may avoid the Americans or take shelter with the people.

He pulls his hood back over his head. The cool will turn outright chilly as the hour deepens. He expects to need his gloves for the rougher terrain standing in his way, the hills of Maryland and Virginia. “It's not an option. Good night.”

“Monsieur.” Philip touches the door frame as though for luck, and presses his hand to the wood as Stark tries to open it. “What are you waiting for?”

The blunt question catches the slimmer, younger officer off guard. He narrows his eyes at the sliver of a French accent. Turning at once, his shoulders square and he draws himself up, the flamboyant attitude going cold and flat, almost stony, in an instant. Here lies a glimpse of the man Steve dislikes and Major Barnes swore would risk the Revolution. Major Stark is, in his estimation, no dilettante or Yankee Doodle dandy, but a serious mind and even a roué, devoid of emotional investments. In short, a terribly dangerous man to cross or meddle with.  
  
Major Anthony Stark shares a good many qualities with Bloody Ban Tarleton, too, save in rank. Banastre Tarleton, called rightly the bloody butcher of the south, earned his Lieutenant Colonel rank fairly through carving up the American colonies. The very man that Dugan says holds Major Barnes and General Greene holds alarming parallels with the other major, but Steve bites his tongue hard to avoid an incident.

“Leave my house, sir,” Stark says to the manservant, affording him a title he doesn’t deserve.

Treacherous footing socially becomes an outright quagmire when Philip -- Philippe, a man who holds King Louis’ ear and the favour of the French army -- loses his smile. He delivers the long stare of a man ingrained in service to his country.

Stark meets that flinty gaze, Steve owns him that much. The major is not accustomed to showing fear, at any rate.

“I'll remind you of General Carter's aid, Major Stark.” Soft words slide into the groove of silence. Philip spreads his fingers wide.

“That has nothing to this foolishness.”  
  
“Then a gentlemen’s arrangement.” Philip sounds so terribly reasonable and mild. Steve knows exactly how compelling he can be, encouraging the young captain to entertain the dullest social events or another round of painful dancing when he needs to finish up his writing. “Did you forget Lafayette?”  
  
Colour flees from Stark’s face. The contrast to his dark hair proves extraordinary, the pallor of his complexion an unhealthy state of ivory bleached in the sun. “No.”

Sensing the tactical advantage, Steve touches the open nerve of the conversation quietly. How Peggy might, under the circumstances, slipping in a choice sentence. Throughout their long friendship, he remembers Lafayette’s prickly relationship with Stark, the clash of idealism born from two very different sets of circumstances. Bold, blond, heroic Lafayette practically inherited his title and prestige at birth; Stark carved out his niche in the shadow of his family’s name and absence.

“Do you have an ounce of regret?” he asks the major.

Stark stares at them both. He clenches his fists. His voice wavers. “You can't be serious.”

“Do you support this revolution?” Steve says.

 _Forgive me, Lafayette. You know better of me. And Bucky, I pray you absolve me of my manners if they should prove unbecoming._  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Then defend it. I will do that, and take a stand.” Steve nods to his manservant, and steps aside for the door to open. He touches his belt to be sure everything is in place.

“I will wait here for the right opportunity to strike instead of throwing my life away. But since you are committed to this foolish path to certain death at the hand of Bloody Ban, I am obliged to do what I can,” Stark says through gritted teeth. They can all hear the forceful crackle of anger held barely in check. Tonight will stay with them for a long time, if they all live long.

Nothing is certain with history unspooling at their feet.

“Thank you.”  
  
“Don't thank me. Stay alive. I do this for your father-in-law and for Lafayette. But mostly General Carter.”  
  
Men keep saying that. They owe General Carter, they owe his connections. Steve wonders that he will ever be enough in his own right. That he serves his country for love and duty satisfies him, but not the impression his gains come by who he knows rather than what he does.

“I need access to a ship, faster the better. Passage for three would be enough.”

Stark’s eyes widen in the dark, bulging against his dark lashes. He swivels so fast his coattails flare. “Three? No.”  
  
“Monsieur Philippe, Dugan, and myself.” Steve touches his throat.

“You can't be serious, Rogers. With so few you are as good as facing a sentence of death. You're taking the Irishman?”  
  
“He may not be a lot of fun, but there's no one to match him for his intelligence about Tarleton and the lay of the land. He broke through the lines. Look at where we are.”  
  
“Look at what you stand to lose. What happens when you land? You plan to roll up to the very docks?” Stark says.

“Only so far as the York River. The plan is to get on the prison ship and break out the American soldiers.”

The major paces in the dimly lit vestibule, his mind whirling. Steve admires the tactical questions. He cannot find any fault with Stark’s gift for grasping challenges and dissecting them effectively. “It's unlikely the British would keep General Greene on a prison ship. He's worth too much. What then?”  
  
“Depending on the span of time and condition of the men, we'll scale the fort from the sea cliffs and free them.”  
  
“No way. It can't be done.” Stark shakes his head for further emphasis.

He knows risks. That Peggy may live a widow far after him, reliant upon the tender cares of her sister and brother-in-law. That the general lacks his assistance, depriving the revolution of a willing pair of hands and an able mind.  
  
He cannot fail. He cannot leave Bucky Barnes to die. Steve tries to smile. “Let me worry about that. All I need is a ship to take me there and everyone knows your links to smugglers and faithful crews.”

Philip says, “The merchants out of the Dutch port of St. Eustatius turn a blind eye to your activities and they make it fine to New York.”

Stark angrily tugs at his collar. “You are such fools to throw your lives away. Why won’t you listen? This plan relies on too many variables to have a hope of succeeding. How can you act like tomorrow won't arrive? Let the senior officers determine a plan that allows the army -- and you -- to survive. It isn’t too late. We will put paid to Tarleton, rather than take this reckless course.”

“Why do you assume you're the smartest in the room?” Steve sighs.

“I _am_ the smartest in the room,” Stark fires back.

“Have you ever considered that attitude might be your doom?“

“Worry about yourself.”

Steve heads for the door, Philip preceding him. For that final shot, he has no answer, for the only reply he can muster would be socially hopeless, and disabling. The priorities put his own success to near the very bottom of the list behind everyone else.

They make it to the court and his horse, the patient grey mare nuzzling at Steve’s arm. She lips at his palm in hopes of a treat or comfort, something that cannot be provided.

  
A shadow slips into the night, and Stark thrusts a ring bearing a seal at them. “Take it. Much joy may you have of it. Stay to the Philadelphia ports or go to Baltimore, and you will find what you’re after.” Steve takes the small device, tucking it carefully into his coat pocket. The major snarls, “One more thing, Rogers. Why do you fight like you're running out of time?”  
“Every day we're running out of time.”

“Why would you say that? Don't be disloyal,” Stark says. He looks like he might snatch the ring back.  
  
“I'm not. Look around. The colonies’ revolution is stalling.”

“You're one man. Why are you doing this?”  
  
Why? He has so many answers. Steve’s answers have faces and names, long connections. His anchors to the world root deep in the soil of this country, and he would give up everything from his name to his life that they thrive. Is that not love?

“I have seen injustice in the world and I yearn to correct it,” Steve says.

“It's a lost cause, Rogers. Tarleton isn’t known for his kindness. I pray they live, I do, but you’re going to certain doom and death. Let it not be said I kept silent at the last moment.”  
  
“I refuse to believe that.”

“I swear, your pride with be the death of us all.” Stark glares at him, eyes dark as the pits. “Beware, pride goeth before the fall.”

“We will depart through Philadelphia. The ride to Baltimore is long enough. So you will help?”  
  
“Yes, I will help you run to your death. I intend to sit at the General's table and obey his creed.” A whisked flick of his hand at Philip earns a baleful glare. “While _he_ answers to the King, you owe your allegiance to the General. When he learns of this--”

“He'll understand the necessity.”

“If you are fortunate, he will parole you to a farmer in New Hampshire.” Stark's face reddens and he snatches his hat from the peg. “You will both do me the courtesy of waiting until I fetch my coat.”

“Not your horse?”

“I won't have anyone connecting me to your folly.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right, Phil Coulson takes on a French persona here as Philippe de [Courson](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Courson), a French nobleman acting as a liaison between the French King and Revolutionary forces. Under the cover of a servant, he loyally answers to Peggy and her father, General Carter, and remains an invaluable friend to Steve.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Philippe, and Dugan take their chances aboard the _Brunswick_ , a privateer ship, as they try to slip past the British naval blockade of Chesapeake Bay. Things are never as easy as they seem.

Water slapping against the wooden hull forms a lulling melody that nonetheless keeps Steve awake in his tiny bunk. He shares his room with Philip and Dugan, both of whom sleep deeply on their makeshift beds. Heaped boxes and crates shift around as the boat bellies over every wave, the stack held by ropes lashed to the walls. He finds it hard to trust one of the crates won't topple over onto him.

The cabin lacks so much as a porthole to give a taste of fresh air. A closed lantern hangs from the opposite wall, giving off weak and smoky light. Steve barely sees his own outstretched hand.

Another wave heaves the boat up and forward. He hears the loud scrape of his bag on the truckle shelf under the bunk. He rolls to his belly, the smelly wool blanket pulled off his torso. Reaching out, he blindly halts the contents of the bag from spilling out, but not the heavy curved plate cresting over his bundled clothes and gear.

The sack topples onto the floor. Roughspun cloth pulls back around the knotted laces, displaying a glimmer of shocking, pure blue painted on silver. The dull light plays off the metallic edge.

His eyes widen and sleep flees, dissolving into a mercurial sense of wonder. The last three days of sailing under a smuggler's banner gave precious little time alone. Slumber in the dark hours provides a semblance of personal time that he comes to crave. In the privacy of their cabin, Steve sometimes writes late into the evening after the cheap tallow candle burns down to a nub. Never has he bothered to see Peggy's gift.

Now he must face her largesse on this grand adventure that none in the household openly endorse. He leans out of his bunk and hopes for a smoother sailing while the ship glides unaccounted around the headlands of river-riddled coast. His fingers brush at the sack and seize the cloth, pulling it closer.

Knots fall in easy order. He draws the yoked mouth of the sack wide, feeling something like a child peering into a courier's bag. The sack yields to him, and he drags out the handsome round plate. No, not a plate. Decorative by the looks of it, possibly something of value he might trade to Banastre Tarleton for Major Barnes.

The notion brings a flat smirk to his mouth. No doubt a British lord might want for coin and an American wall decoration to grace his house back in London will be just the thing. No, it can't be that. He eases back the cloth and puzzles over a red ring, and then the cluster of thirteen stars painted in a circle. Perhaps embossed. He isn't sure.

No, the shield will not be for Tarleton or Cornwallis. Neither would welcome a symbol of the Revolution like this.

_A shield?_

With a sense of worry and wonder, Steve traces the round contours of the shield. He can hardly imagine how this will stop a bayonet, let alone a musket ball. The metal is so thin and tempered in a way he hardly fathoms, he a man familiar only in passing to the various forms of armour used by his fellow patriots. Truth be told, he's trusted in his leather helmet and coat far more than anything else.

Yet a shield this is, two thick leather straps accounting for a good portion of the weight. He trails his fingertips over their inky length, unable to distinguish much in this light. He feels a shape punched into the leather, and learns by touch its contours the way he once explored his wife's face while she slept.

And how oft he traces the indentations left by Major Barnes’ pen on his letters. The captain is a man of torn convictions and solid principles. His fingertips skip across the humanoid shape, the lines of a draping dress. Liberty, proud and bold, faces his heart.

He breathes out and works the shield back into the sack, using much more care than before. The soft metallic sheen vanishes away when the metal lies inside its cloth shroud, depriving the lantern light of any reflective surface. A gift beyond comparison, this shield, a reason for the Revolution worn on his arm.

Neither Dugan or Philip move as he nudges the sack back under his bunk. It will do him no good to attract attention from the British or their erstwhile hosts. Stark put them aboard the _Brunswick_ and did little more than put the fear of the Lord -- or himself, Steve isn't sure -- in the smugglers before they left port.

Still, best not to tempt trouble. If the British come aboard, he will be prepared. He cannot every hide a sack during an inspection. As he leans back on his bunk, he tries to plan his future course.

 

* * *

 

The hammering on their wall, as the cabin lacks a door, proves hardly necessary. Dugan pulls on is leather cape and hat and Philip, true to form, already has his daggers at the ready. Some days, Steve wonders if his manservant lives in a state of perpetual readiness, and only pretends to sleep.

Steve has no time to entertain such notions. He scoops up his bag from under the bed, the straps wrapped around his forearm.

A sailor dashes in, face red and sweat on the thin mustache adorning his upper lip. Clinging to the doorway, he says, “The British signalled us for boarding. You're to make ready.”  
  
Dugan shoots an excitable look from the sailor to the two patriots, and his thin mouth cants up in a cocky grin. “I've always fancied being a cabin boy.”  
  
“Silence. They've no love of Irish.” Philip slips his hand onto the younger man's shoulder, a limitation on hasty action.

“Where are we?” Steve asks.

“Close to the Cape.” The sailor sways as the ship carves a direct line through the unsettled sea. “We haven't reached the blockade yet. Probably at least ten miles off yet.”

“British ships coming from the south?”

“Looks so. Captain's going to slow for them to catch up.”

The three patriots might wait aboard and pass the Chesapeake themselves, getting closer to the hulks where Major Barnes and the other prisons could lie. Or they might take to land and figure out how to row across the shallow waters at the mouth of the bay.

“Do you know about the prison ships?” Steve cautiously approaches the sailor, his bag in his hand.

The sailor nods. “Course. A right pain trying to sail past the boats. At least they're not fouling up the approach on the west side.”  


The activity booms overhead, feet thundering on the deck. Orderly shouts command the crew to alertness. “Do you think we'll come any closer?”

General Greene destroyed his own navy to prevent the British from obtaining any advantages from his ships. Those ghostly wrecks lie underwater mostly, but the boats the British could salvage now act as jails. Steve resists the need to cross himself spontaneously, although he possesses no real faith save in doing the right thing.

“That's up to the captain and the Brits, of course. Some hungry Redcoat wants beef, we'll find out way through.” The sailor shrugs his skinny shoulders. “I'm to tell you now is your time to run if you got cold feet about going through with an inspection.”

Dugan shrugs and buttons up his thin coat the tighter. “I'll stare the bastards in the eye.”

Such bravery is a mark of character needed to flee through the night and break through a double ring of English artillery. Outrunning Tarleton requires pluck. Steve rests his hands at his sides. “I'm prepared to stay until we are closer.”

“Get up on deck, then,” the sailor barks as he spins and runs up the steep stairs.

 

* * *

 

 

The process of ships catching up and an officer accompanying an inspector -- by the looks of him a trumped-up merchant in an ill-fitting coat -- takes far more time than Steve ever expects. He might be halfway across Cape Charles in the time it takes for the smugglers to throw down a rope bridge and allow the English to board.

A full row of cannons deters any thought of funny business. He stands in front of a huge coil of rope, his eyes properly down. Philip looks as comfortable as a forgettable shipmate as he does in Peggy's salon. Under the flat assessment of the hard-faced agent, he maintains that downcast decorum that is neither disrespectful or bold.

The business between the captain and the officer happens brusquely, and the first mate stands by with a cask of liquor and presumably coin. Steve watches the transaction through the corner of his eye, suppressing whatever grimace leaking through his control.

_Brunswick's_ crew treats the matter as routine, right up until the agent clucks his tongue and thrusts a finger at Dugan.

“I don't remember him, “ the agent says.

“Had to replace lost men,” the first mate says, giving a modest shrug. “Lose ‘em all the time.”  


Dugan squints at his boots, his thick mustache quivering. His nose wrinkles as he inhales. The crew stiffens as he sneezes, and the officer accompanying the agent whirls at that explosive noise.

Blades rattle a little and Dugan sneezes into the crook of his elbow. A shivering sound rattles around the younger soldier, and he bellows a louder sneeze.

The sailors snicker. Someone mutters, “Bless you.“

Making a face, the agent moves away. “I do hope he hasn't been permitted near the food. Go on and show me your paperwork for the supplies.”  
  
While several signalled sailors escort the agent to the hold, the officer remains aboard. A tall man, the British presses his arms to his sides tightly. He pauses and scowls, a look of vague disdain cloaking his marked features.

“He looks familiar.” He thrusts his thumb at Dugan.

_We should have told him to shave_. Steve grits his teeth. Too late for them to make any adjustments. Dugan's Irish accent and his proud facial hair would bump up against memory.

One of the sailors clears his throat. The captain and the British officer converge on Dugan's position.

“Sir,” calls the smuggler. “He's my cousin.”

“Where are you from?” The officer speaks directly to Dugan, who opens his mouth as the smuggler does.

“Boston,” they both say.

The officer sneers, viewing an unredeemable bit of dirt at the bottom of his shoe. Disgust poisons his replies, “Boston. A hub of treason and seditious citizens, spurred up against their rightful government.”

Dugan curls his lip. “The Americans don't treat me any better, y'know.”

“Plenty of your kinsmen in the south and north have gone in with the rebels,” the officer says. He advances a step and the distant British guns seem to shadow his every move. Aware of the bristling sailors and the flat gazes, he pushes closer into the Irishman’s personal space. “I do believe we've met.”

“Maybe. My ma do your washin’?”  
  
“Hardly.” The officer's eyes narrow as they flow over the younger man. All Steve can do not to step up and challenge him for the brute show of dominance. American officers are known to do the same, and he loathes the unnecessary display. The general would never stand for it.

“Then no idea. My cousin says to me this job pays well an’ I get a full belly.” Dugan shrugs. “Better than Boston at any rate. I don't see it being bad that the army gets fed and remember who brought ‘em food.”

Typical loyalties for many folks throughout the colonies. They want only to live. Steve stares at a knot in the boards.

“Is that so.”

Not a question from the officer. His lip curls again, his hand resting at his hip. Too close to a knife for comfort.

Tension crackles through the men assembled under the flat sky, the low-lying greenery cloaking the disputed territory of Virginia. Some hours of daylight remain, preventing any quick getaway. What the waves won't claim, British guns will.

Dugan clenches his fist. He prepares to fight but a fight now might be destructive for all, the ship blown to flinders and any hope of rescuing their men lost.

_Dugan_. Steve wills him to stillness and silence, projecting an air of calm. The officer snaps his head at the blond captain for reasons not clear to Steve. He lowers his head.

Another sailor springs up the stairs from the hold. “Sir, your man wants to know about ale. Err…”

“And you I've never seen about this crew either,” the officer says. “You coming in from Boston too?”

Steve shakes his head, scrambling for a story. He lacks the suave ease at deceit and lying that some possess. His shoulders square.

The smugglers owe him no loyalty. At the first sign of trouble, they likely will cast him over -- into the sea or British hands.

“Picked that one up in New York,” the captain speaks up, finally, putting on an air of bored attention. “Look at the size of him. I'd be a fool not to have arms like that.”

Steve straightens only some.

The officer doesn't crack a smile. “If you can take an Irishman, why not a giant?”

Sensing their cue, the other crewmen add their comments, ribald and harsh as sailors are wont to be. “A silent giant at that.”

“Eats enough for two.”  
  
“And Paddy talks enough for four.”

The officer nods at the agent. “I heard you had something special on the side, Captain.”

“Is that so?”  
  
“What are you trying to hide, Johnson?”

The first mate nudges Steve, and gestures. “You should go.”  
  
“What?” The dispute consumes his attention.

“These men will go. You, him, that fellow in the back.” A casual gesture indicates Philip, though how much the forgettable, mild man steps into the frame of reference isn't entirely clear.

“I'll go,” Dugan says.

The idea of the Irishman brings a spark of disdain to the British agent's face, and sends a thrill of panic through Steve's belly. He can hardly say no aloud.

“It's all right. You'll wish you brought him with you. The Irishman can pull twice his weight.” The captain shrugs his shoulders. Nodding to the officer, he leans in. “Don't think twice about keeping him, sir. He might impress you.”

The officer's face freezes over colder than the Delaware River. Still, manners abide, smugglers or not. “I'm afraid it's unlawful, sir.”

Steve heads for the hold along with the trio and three other sailors meant to help load the boats. None look at one another as they're shepherded along. It wouldn't look right to lag behind but he learned how to slow his pace believably.

“What do you mean?” the captain asks.

Jerking his head at Dugan's retreating form, the officer says, “He's freeborn?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I'm a British officer. We do not keep slaves. Now, have them hurry on.”

Thus Steve ends up descending into the hold to carry barrel and boxes onto a waiting skiff moored to the ship. The waves are low but rolling, brushing up against the shore. Two British ships wait on the transfer of smuggled goods. Slinging down barrels in a rope nets takes time and care to not lose any of the precious victuals. He waits on the deck, unable to say a word to his counterparts.

In the distance, he sees the fort rearing on the southern shore. He might even imagine the broken masts of the scuttled American fleet, razor-thin black lines rising above the muddy bay. It hurts to think Bucky could be witnessing the same vision, unaware of how close help is.

“You, down there to row. You'll mind yourself, now,” says the first mate. The command startles him from his fugue.

He has no choice, and he clamber down the ropes.

On account of his size, Steve ends up in the skiff and handed an oar. Philip sits behind him and Dugan forced to the front, schlepping water that might slop over the side of the boat. They push away with difficulty and start to row, finding their strokes. Steve hasn't done any such thing in years but the officer issuing orders has the right of it.

A man as big as he and strong has no trouble. No one counts out the beat, but they find their way. Head ducked, he pulls on the wooden oar as they sweep through the sea.

“Why so sad?” quips one of the British sailors.

He says nothing, hauling on the oar. The bitter scent of the sea and the salted beef lingers in his nose.

“Remember, we made an arrangement,” the officer says to the lot of smugglers mixed among his own men. “Keep to rowing or I will not hesitate to discipline you. Stay put to a man when we get there.”

The sailor smirks. “You'll be back soon, you'll see.”

“Time will tell,“ Steve says.

“As long as you serve him well, it won't be any problem.”

The side of the British ship rears larger in his sight, a wall. The thought of continuing teases at his tormented thought, but he cannot invite going on. British shot would end that dream in a watery grave, and he cannot issue a command to rise up in reach of them.

How odd to be one of George Washington's men offloading cargo smuggled from Philadelphia, under the auspices of Major Anthony Stark no less. The smugglers pay their fees to avoid the seizure of their goods.

Divvying up the men in two, the British set the Americans to unloading proceeds. Sailors overhead throw down nets and manage some modest crane to take the heavier crates and barrels. Cheers wait for later. Taking their due first, the men above speak of better meals and accursed duties minding the siege. Philip and Dugan dig in to hand over goods, and Steve loads them. He dares not say a word, his head full of outrage for the situation.

The officers up top put a stop to the transfer midway through, some dispute over a keg full of beans. The quarrel builds and Philip exchanges looks with Steve. Steve shakes his head. They can do nothing while the agent argues with another officer and they gesticulate wildly at the boat below.

This close to the enemy, Steve aches for the prospect of his shield left on the _Brunswick_ , his gun, and a full French fleet at his back.

He masters himself. When the time comes, he will act. That isn't now. The British quarreling over supplies and landing give him an idea, however.

“I think I could be of some assistance,” he says to the officer orchestrating the offloading of the goods.

“What?” The officer clearly doesn't expect him to talk.

Steve clears his throat and lets a crate down for a moment. The crew above seems not to care, convulsed by the argument. “With the supplies, sir. I have a few suggestions, sir.”  
  
“As you were.”

Truly the Englishman must be bored to allow this much. Steve senses the dispute between the crew and the agent must be a stalemate.

“I admire how you transfer them so quickly. If something was overlooked, we might ferry it to shore.”

“That's a considerable distance,” the British officer says.

Steve flexes his reddened hands. “We could manage. It would stop the fuss.” He hesitates. “Have we done something wrong, sir?

The officer stares at him like he spoke in ancient tongues and proclaimed himself a king of a fallen land. Distrust flickers through those dark eyes. Steve lowers his head, much as his stiff neck hates to bend. “I have to wonder.”

“Sir?”  
  
“Your reputation isn't known to me and yet you take initiative. Johnson has someone who thinks on his crew -- not precisely a state he is known to favour. Are you angling for a favour?”

“I would never, sir.”

“You've got a hunger. A head full of fantasies of being an officer. The work looks easy. Leading is harder.”  


“No, sir. I'm not looking for such. The captain already gave me a shot.”

Steve wants to plant his fist in that arrogant face, and understands for the first time what Major Barnes or General Greene must have felt facing down Tarleton or Cornwallis respectively. Instead, he makes a statement to the contrary and returns to slinging boxes under that pitiful eye.

“As I was saying, I look forward to seeing men working hard. We could use someone like you, I imagine. Johnson won't offer much.” The officer keeps looking over his head.

“Why are you telling me this, sir?”  
  
“I could use someone like you to lighten the load.”

“Sir, I appreciate you need all the help you can get. But I have friends.”

“So?”

“I can't leave them.” Steve shrugs at the distant form of the _Brunswick_ , careful not to look at the two men nearer at hand that he dares not betray to the British. “They found me a place and I can't jump ship just like that.” It's the truth, in a roundabout way.

The officer's expression turns cold and severe again. He calls up to another crewman to replace him. “You squandered your opportunity, boy. You won't have shore leave or aid to rise above your pitiful state on that boat. Remember that.”

He climbs up to the deck, leaving the trio among a larger crew. Steve holds his breath until the man is out of sight, bending to his duty of sorting through a few bags of tobacco meant for the occupying force.

“You'll have another chance,” Philip whispers in a pause.

“I don't know,” he says.

Honesty comes hard to Steve. He truly does not know whether he missed a glimpse of fleeting opportunity, dooming those he cares about and the cause that lies dear to his heart. And no one here can tell him.

 

* * *

 

All too soon, the work is done. The crew commands the Americans back to the Brunswick. Steve’s chance might lie on the British ships, working with that officer of unknown temperament. He cannot be sure they will remain or the British fleet might turn for the open Atlantic and hunt for the French. Too many choices, too many options.

He ends up rowing his way back across the waves with the rest. He makes no plea to the British to reconsider.

Away from Barnes, away from Greene. He feels their disappointment nailed into his fists while he pulls on the oar. Somewhere a man's hope gutters and dies. The thicket of boats contains the ebbing strength of the patriot forces in the south, all that remains of a great army. Sick on the waves, he faces the diminishing shape of the fort and the masts that vanish into empty clouds.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry_. Pain spears him through the heart. Steve sets his jaw. He keeps the beat. They return to the _Brunswick_ , lying under her looming shadow, and the horizon line taunts him.

Cornwallis and Howe have their troops on the water, south and north, and he fears they might never break through.

The ocean rises and falls to the beat of the oars, the creak of the benches. They return cold and wet to the _Brunswick,_ Dugan shaking with fatigue and Philip wordless after his labours.

For supper, Cook slings up a forgettable meal of beans and glutinous rice practically melted together. Not an ounce of the mix proves palatable to Steve.

He cannot find words to speak, tearing the hard biscuit into crumbs over his bowl. Philip offers silent support as he can, seated next to Steve, and not speaking. His comforting silence impacts the turmoil in Steve's heart.

“We're on our way through the blockade,” the first mate announces over the meal where the crew bow their heads and shovel the food into their mouths. A few hands thump on the table, satisfied by the news.

Their shared interests will soon enough diverge. For now, they point in the same direction, deeper into the Chesapeake and into the maw of danger.

Fear crackles in his heart. Steve feels an emptiness where his best friend should be, a deepened frustration. He cannot sit still.

Rising from the table, he leaves his food behind as he heads back to the cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little historical lesson here. What do you do with prisoners of war? On the American side, British and Hessian (German) soldiers usually ended up ransomed if they were officers, exchanged for American prisoners or placed with loyal, trustworthy Patriots who kept an eye on them. Housing enemy soldiers in jails simply wasn't done.
> 
> On the other side, things were considerably uglier. The British treated foreign soldiers they captured quite well. However, Lord Cornwallis and most of the British administration in the Thirteen Colonies didn't view Patriots as foreign soldiers. They were _subjects_ , and therefore _traitors_ to the Crown. Naturally, those privileges accorded to captured French were not applied to the Americans. The British regularly put American prisoners of war in barely seaworthy vessels -- prison ships -- that they floated out of range. Manacled soldiers received next to no food or water. They had no protection from the elements. Soon they succumbed to hunger, virulent sickness, and exposure. The problem took care of itself and hopefully acted as a deterrent.
> 
> Steve therefore has considerable reason to dread Major Barnes' imprisonment on such a ship. Fatality rates were ghastly, even for 18th-century wartime. Compare to the [Jersey prison ship](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/grisly-history-brooklyns-revolutionary-war-martyrs-180962508/), an act that was infamous in its day.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Facing terrible odds and dwindling time, Steve dives in to reach one of the prison ships. He hopes to find Bucky.
> 
> All that extertion and salt water do things to a man's mind, though. As he fights his way to the floating wrecks, he remembers his first explicit interlude with Major Barnes and the moment that changed his life forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content ahoy!

Progress through Chesapeake Bay is painfully slow. While the _Brunswick_ threads the shallow waters shadowed by British ships, Steve sees the evidence of encampments all around. Cook fires practically glow at arm's reach, tended by spectral silhouettes that flit in front of the heaps of cinders. The spectacle reminds him of something out of a shadow play put on to entertain children in New York, something he knows only as an adult.

Lights blaze over the British camps. Small glimmers outline portholes on the fleet holding the mouth of the bay, ever on the lookout for the French ships promised to the American side. British cannons point at the besieged fort and south to meet Comte de Grasse's naval forces.

In some ways, the view is incomparably lovely. He rarely travels by ship nowadays. Washington moves on foot or horse, and ferries across rivers are the largest boats that accommodate the aides-de-camp and their precious supplies.

Light on the water does them no favours. The fat globe of the moon approaching her full face hangs in the sky, driven aloft through a temperamental veil of silver-shod clouds. Soft moonlight brings shadows into blue relief, and he despairs of the clear weather. They can't have that. Stealth requires as much darkness as possible.

“We could all strip down to our socks,” he murmurs under his breath.

Philip glances over. Sometimes he demonstrates a preternatural ability to listen in on the exact moments when Steve mutters his thought aloud.

He gives a thin smile falsified by anxiety, and returns to fussing with a rope.

Alas, his manservant appears to be in no mood to let it slide. The Frenchman inclines his head a degree. “Slow down.”

Not much activity gathers around them. Some of the crew dice and others take rest where they can find it before their shift comes due. Sailing their way to the British docks nearby on the York River requires a light hand to avoid collisions, though the painstakingly slow progress drives Steve to grind his teeth.

“This isn't exactly my first time.”

“Then why the hesitation?”

“I feel like a scoundrel.”

“And so it seems am I.”

Steve shakes his head. “I don't mean to fool around. The prison ships are close enough.”

“For a skiff?” Philip looks dubious, his tone dipping. Steve shakes his head.

A ketch might prove the drier and more comfortable option -- and one the British will fire on without hesitation. No one holds any business rowing out to a prison hulk at nightfall. Even if he could secure a British uniform, he still faces a gauntlet of guns and cannons. Any one of those striking a prison ship imperils the passengers on it.

He dislikes his choices, and the two men he leads into danger deserve every chance at coming home. “No. I can't think of any way to avoid detection.”

Philip nods, relief hollowing his shoulders. “Like as not, we're going to get shot.”

“Aren't you just a Lancelot of the revolutionary set.”

“Among the very flower of chivalry.”

“I wouldn't call Dugan that.”

“The prodigy of the Yorktown Woods has skill, give him credit. He can be our Galahad.”  
  
“Arthur dies at the end of the story, you know that?” Steve shakes his head and gestures with his hand, as though he can hope to ward off bad luck.

Philip chuckles as he sinks back against the side of the ship. “He lives on waiting for the hour he is needed most, actually.”

No Knights of the Round Table wait in the cops of maple trees for a sign. Washington's cavalry is not coming. It relies on the captain's word alone. His shoulders sink a degree under his coat.

“Tonight has to be the night. You can stay aboard, Philip. It's not too late,” Steve says.

“We're with you. We would not have volunteered otherwise,” Philip says.

Across the boat, Dugan deprives the smugglers of their coin and pride over a game of dice. He balances the right amount of enthusiasm with wide-eyed surprise at winning the round. Coins pass hands to a chorus of grumbles and clinks in a wooden mug. Steve watches for a moment, then shakes his head. “Twenty-two ships in Yorktown Harbour,” he says quietly. “How many thousand surround our troops?”

“Easily ten thousand, possibly fifteen including the German mercenaries and Native Americans.”

Fifteen thousands and they need only one pair of eyes to spot the men on the water. Steve brushes his palm over his eyes. “Any hope of success is fleeting. Under these circumstance…”  
  
“Rogers?”

“I won't abandon Major Barnes. But without knowing which of the ships he might be on, I'll have to check each,” Steve says.

“I can swim. The Irishman, too.”

Cold water, a desperate crawl. Steve cannot be everywhere at once before the night is up. “I'm in dire need of assistance on this one, Philip.”  
  
“Say no more.”  
  
“I'll fetch Dugan and let him know. We need a signal of some kind if our strategy plays out.”

“White cloth on the ship? Nothing flammable is worthwhile.”

Steve pauses as he pats his belt pouch. “Something reflective. A mirror or a spoon? Easy to draw attention in the right direction. That and a white cloth might be enough.”

His manservant nods, and that concludes the simple act of planning. The rest will be divvying up their targets.

The ships lie offshore where the prisoners cannot simply drop into the bay and swim for the nearest shore. Patrols monitor the west side where the bulk of the British encampment lies, supported by their Native allies further back in the trees. Artillery embedded in the flats point at the besieged American fort. Even if the men could somehow swim past for the fort, a parade of sharpened wooden poles jut out of the slope to protect the backside. The risk of being shot by their own countrymen remains high enough. The British fleet guards the way to the far shore.

“Convince the crew to give us a barrel or a crate to float. There surely must be something empty in the hold,” Steve says. Night sinks in deeper around them, the air thick with the scent of brine and distant threads of smoke.

“We'll make ready.” In the silvery moonlight, Philip looks like something otherworldly, his skin much too fair on the smoky dark backdrop of the sea. Something else to worry about, smearing their faces with soot, and worrying about the cold of the water. “That is, unless you want to step over and go now?”

 _Now?_ Steve mouths the word in surprise.

“You are the man who stole a British cannon.” Blithe as a puppy, his manservant gestures. “On your mark.”

 

* * *

 

“Hit them quick, and get out fast.” Steve's parting words off the ketch at the back of the _Brunswick_ sounded so brave. Three men against fifteen thousand, to say nothing of the patriots of their own side. A crate assigned to each, connected by long ropes, gave a hope of reaching the ships without fatigue and exhaustion setting in.

On the crew’s part, they lowered the ketch almost to sea level and allowed the three men the grace of riding under an oilskin tarp in their wake. The ship angles on the British supply lines, and Steve proves unafraid to jump in and show the way.

Brave words and a simple command prove so much harder hitting the cold water. Soggy clothes pull them down and he strongly considers ditching his pack, tied in a bundle around his shoulders. Too valuable; he decides against shucking his soaked coat. That barrier offers some hint of warmth as he kicks his way to the far ship.

Staying alive until they reach the anchored troop ships proves infinitely more difficult once in the water. Steve takes the furthest of the three ships, angling away on a trident line from the other two.

Every stroke is a test of their camaraderie and bravery. One misplaced arm, a sudden shout, and the British Navy might be on them. They cling to the barrels and Steve kicks strong and steady against the drag on the rope. Dugan takes up the middle, and Philip behind them. They will cut free closer to the prison ships and approach slow and quiet.

Waves dip and fall in gurgles. He tastes salt in his mouth and sputters out water. Endurance marches hold nothing on swimming. Every stroke is a sacrifice made for Major Barnes. For Peggy. For the Revolution.

He redefines the Revolution as a war against the water. The colonies languish under the British yoke just as the sea rolls around him, wiping the tears and the years away. Raise his arm, dip beneath the sea. Stretch out, kick, not too high or too low. The chill sinks into his bones. Too late to turn back.

All those years ago, Major Barnes penned _This one's mine_ on a letter to him. He knows Bucky likes he knows his own mind, and his best friend would have the strength to carry on if their positions were reversed.

So he must what he must do. He cannot stop.

 

* * *

 

1776 is not a year of much celebration among the Revolutionaries. American patriots pray for victory by all the powers that be.

Back in the city, before the British claimed it, they find their way out from the camp. New York beckons to their spirits at a deep, incomprehensible level. A child of New York adopted, if not born, Major Barnes leads him to the best corners. Their watering holes are graced by the best of men -- Wilson, Lafayette, Barton -- and bartenders willing to take American money when so few do.

Truly, he didn't think through the freedom on his time. Too many rounds shared among old friends leave them laughing, singing, and a little too loosened up. It will be a night of truths and redefined friendships, though none of the carousers know that.

“My dearest Steven.” Words whispered into his ear after three pints leave him sitting stiff and upright on his seat. The major lurks behind him, brushing his lips against the shell of Steve's ear.

Why does he thrill at the prospect of contact, or poetry spoken rather than scribed in ink on a hasty moment?

He knows not what to make of the pang deep in his belly or the low laughter trickling over him, half an octave deeper than his own. Unconsciously he licks his lips, coated in the wheat ale, and something else. Anticipation has a flavour, too.

“I've never known anyone as trusting or as kind,” Barnes says, and every sentiment crashes through the blond. They have known each other what feels for lifetimes, sharing hardships and joys together at the tavern and over Washington's table.

Activity whirls around them and Steve honestly notices nothing but the scent of exotic West Indies spices and warmth. How can warmth have a scent? He cannot refute the tantalizing impact. The battle he wages against restraint and decorum proves lopsided at best.

A heavy arm settles around his shoulders, and Barnes hauls him from his stool. They stumble into the dark corner of the tavern, screened by comrades in arms, to join some drinking song popularized in Philadelphia or elsewhere. It doesn't matter he knows only half the lyrics, the major whispers them in his ear along with ribald suggestions.

Somehow he loses his coat and ends up waving about a red scarf back and forth, hailing the Revolution and Washington interchangeably. Lafayette laughs loudest and applauds the sight of their fiery, able captain showing such loyal enthusiasm.

“More!” Wilson calls to the publican. A fresh round of drinks spills out their petty wages in a wave of New York's best, and maybe the brews do not match Sam Adams’, but Boston is a long way from the occupied harbour.

One thing leads to another, and Major Barnes guides him outside to trace the stars over the roof. Steve stares up at the immortal watchfires and wonder convulses his throat, leaving him speechless. Without his coat, the air is oppressively warm and humid. Barnes guides his shirt open to reveal a square of his white chest and his throat, then dips his head.

The first press of warm lips goes through him in a ray of sunshine, no less hot than a brand pressed to his flesh. Barnes marks him invisibly when he jerk in something like pain, but a thousand times more sweet.

A halt to the proceedings almost kills him then and there. Shock widens his eyes and his head falls back against the crude slatted siding on the tavern. His chin tilts up to bare his neck and shoulder. Never before has he surrendered to anything, not even the epidemic that carried off his mother and very nearly him as well. Another man might stand by, chastened by reaction.

He loves Bucky more than anything then, and his hand shakes when it rests on the lapel of the major's open jacket. But he never pushes away.

Some whisper of urgency claims them both, none of the customary innocence or uncertainty that later Steve expected. Not that Barnes leaves him in any condition to consider more than the way their lips meet, how a man's body feels under his hands. So different from the soft curves and delicacy of the rare women he bedded, the major embodies something strong, powerful, virile.

The major's physical prowess eclipses the rare statues of ancient philosophers at King's College. In flesh, he attains what sculptors immortalize in marble. Fingertips skate through the fine cloth shirt and past the vest, and Steve learns for the first time what foreign masculine terrain feels like. The way his thumb dips into the hollow of the collarbone satisfies a dawning curiosity that turns liquid when Barnes suckles on his neck.

From there he can't quite remember clearly the sequence of events that brings him out of the alley. They loop arms around one another, another pair of soldiers headed through the city. Somehow they reach a greensward abandoned by the locals, a bottle in one hand. Major Barnes doesn't dignify any callers or younger recruits with his attention, roosting two drunken conscripts back to their lodgings.

His own lodging house is so very far away. Both he and Barnes stay in the same place, in part for him to save on money and the major to receive his messages more often than not. Soon enough Washington will head out and they will dutifully follow.

For a rare moment, the evening belongs to Steve and Bucky, and them alone. No soldier stands by as watch as they pass the hedgerows. They share the bottle between them, exchanging swings of beer around kisses and laughter. Neither too inebriated to stand or too clear-eyed to fall, Steve warms to a soft rose flush. He returns those kisses as ardently as any fire engulfs seasoned timber.

Clipped bushes safeguard them and impart a necessity for silence, to avoid prying eyes. They cannot tear clothes away with any safety. Caution tempers eagerness and a lick of anticipation as volatile as lightning on a mountaintop, one threatening to blow all their care away. Steve lies on his side, the major propped against a tree spared some of the worst fighting. Only a few boughs droop down, heavy foliage offering welcome shade against prying eyes, if not the absent sun.

They tangle together and come apart, pulling on belts and tugging buttons free. One springs away from loose stitches, and Steve laughs behind Bucky's hand applied firmly to his mouth when that secure horn fastener is lost to the grass.

“I'll make you look for it later,” the major warns.

Steve's eyes glitter and he keeps laughing in a muffled threnody.

“On your hands and knees.” Bucky's threats are never idle and such he silences the blond with a moan, a hand dipped under the open split in Steve's trousers.

He's never felt another man's hand on his cock, much less once so knowledgeable about stroking the most sensitive nerves into a bold stirring. Not that he failed to be softer than a steel pipe. Only a few strokes of that warm fist encourage him to start pumping his hips of his own accord, and Major Barnes goes to his knees to apply a more vigorous rhythm.

Soon it burns a little and Steve yearns for the unholy release not to cease. They have barely begun, he should know. His mouth goes tight, lips bleached white and painted to his teeth, while Bucky caresses his side and pulls his shaft straight and true to point at his belly.

Only natural that he should draw Steve up to sit, the obvious arousal between them. When their mouths meet, salvation rains down. It's Steve who delivers those tentative nips around echoing growls of a building thunderstorm. Their hands and chests meet, pressed together, and the tree trunk alone seems to keep them up.

Skin on skin shares warmth beneath the sweltering heat, and Steve cries out when his pecs scrape over the embroidered edge of Bucky's coat. They part for a moment, looking down at the pink line streaked down his chest. In two seconds, the major tears the neckline of that cheap white shirt all the way to Steve's navel.

The tearing noise shocks him to a sound of plaintive despair. Something in that sets Bucky to chuckling and then bending his head, sliding hot lips over his mouth with bruising force that will tell in the morning and he later explains away as an amorous lover.

Only Lafayette seems to get it.

Then, there, Steve has no idea how to respond. He wants and he _needs_ , a blazing truth written in a gospel. Never a religious man, he feels a calling to something holy and pristine, in the person of Bucky Barnes. His fingers show reverence owed to saintly relics when they brush against those high cheekbones. Words fall woefully short to appreciate the ice-blue eyes, the dark hair. The major's smile, bruised from kissing, knocks him back a peg.

He comes undone from a smile. Pride isn't the word Steve is looking from. Every caress leaves so much more inside him. Bucky outshines the moon and sun combined.

Stroking away the dark hair back behind the major's ear, he sighs. “You're so damn handsome.”

“You're not half-bad yourself.” Nuzzling into his neck, the dark-haired major presses Steve up against the tree. His shirt may be in scraps in the front, but it still provides armour from being scraped and scratched to ribbons.

Then that hand bedevils his ability to make sounds other than rough gasps and moans thick with passion. The major makes the world safe and sound, imposing his body between Steve and the rest of the world. None are likely to know the way his calloused hand strokes the blond to a point of quivering hardness and blank eyes staring at those stars, fixed and unblinking.

Faster, now, the rhythm makes a stifled crescendo of warm flesh and his aching length. The major averts his head and spits into his palm -- an unapologetic necessity to keep from rubbing Steve's cock raw. Applying the saliva slickness only robs the blond of breath and leaves him dripping clear precum in diamond beads.

The appearance of that when his head is thrown back causes Barnes to pause. Steve gives him all he can, lifting his hips, as though he might trap the miraculously gifted fist against their tight bellies. His knees part as the major moves between them, allowing some relief when they rejoin in a kiss.  
  
Steve doesn't hesitate, his hand firm on Barnes’ hip under that long officer's jacket. Holding there and at the neck gives him save handholds as he rises up, offering himself for whatever wickedness lies ahead. He's got no other choice. He must rise up.

A display of a determination earns smooth reward. Bucky leans over to kiss his chest, laying down those warm presses of his mouth. He patiently waits until Steve is the last one standing, thrusting up into his closed fist. Desperation floods Steve's senses. His mind whirls. Nothing in his experience prepares him for this, and his youth and scrappy nature fall away to reveal a yearning need, a longing for connection.

“I'll give the world to you,” Bucky whispers. He sucks the flavour of the captain from his fingertip and that image inked indelibly on memory will serve to inflame Steve for months and years to come.

“Keep doing that.” A prayer, a plea. It's not a command. “You'll blow us all away,” Steve says and means every truth.

He isn't prepared for the skimming fingertips dancing around his testes, not the way a digit deftly slides under when his buttocks leave the grass again. Not much space remains between his pants and his backside but the major finds a way. His tight rosette heeds not the gentle touches at first, though he clenches his hole and groans into his bicep.

Bucky's playing a dangerous game. Steve prays the major shows him mercy as he unravels at the sensations rolling between his captive shaft being stroked -- milked, really, dripping freely -- and the taut ring.

Then something slides in, slowly pushing. Unable to modulate his thoughts to the point to speak, he only knows how to touch, to cling tight. He strains to reach Bucky's mouth, on the verge of a kiss, and denied. His parted lips allow him to pant, words cracked and broken down into whispers. No sense girds the noises, merely betraying his approaching peak.

Bucky smiles. “Someday. “

Steve dedicates himself to memorizing every sort. Domestic thoughts aren't ever his foray but now he longs to know how the major rises from sleep and his expression when fully at calm. Or he would, as the burning discomfort eases back into something that leaves him molten and pliant for all the stuttering thrusts of his hips. Another coating of saliva drips onto the tip of his cock, connected by a thin strand to Bucky's mouth and that -- that --

He drowns on the sight like he swallowed seawater, hit by a wave. Everything burns and tingles, lungs fighting for air, and he pushes himself up, up to the surface…

That deeply pressed digit touches the core of his being, somehow. Deep within sensation detonate and brings him alive in the way a blinking subject escaping Plato's cave must have felt walking into the sunshine. He bucks and cries out, necessitating the major stifling him under lips and eager tongue. Chaos and shock solve everything. He wants to scream and remembers only at the last moment to hold back the sound.

This is fucking. This is more than fucking, this is another language altogether. His French and English hold no candle to something from the deepest darkest heart of a lost continent. Nothing prepares him for the intimate exploration of deep niches in his being, or those fingers -- two! Ah gods, _two!_ \-- plundering him relentlessly from behind.

More, he needs more, and never will Steve be satisfied taking all for himself and returning nothing in kind. He lacks much wit to manage more than reaching for the major, groping between their hips.

Those blue eyes ignite like a pair of lanterns, mouth hanging open in shock. Oh no, Barnes wasn't expecting that. Never anticipated the sleight of hand that grips his rigid shaft and pulls it alongside his own fist. Soon they end up riding the waves together, though Bucky is hellbent to drive him over first and Steve relinquishes second place with shuddering groans and arching his back.

Thank God Bucky puts a cork in all that by suckling on his tongue until he forgets everything of breathing and drowns under the cataclysmic wave. He's never felt anything that charged, dancing lightning and warm sunshine pouring over his skin, as Steve stumbles into his blossoming orgasm.

Guided through the darkness into a place of white-hot light, he trembles in fatigue. Every muscle clenches, places he doesn't even know existed tighten for a last onslaught. That perfect hand drags the pleasure up the curved line of his shaft and the fingers perform their magic inside him, something he dreads and never wants to end.

What he says he'll never know. Only that Bucky smiles suddenly, an almost shy look of wonder. Their mouths meet, they kiss, and the world turns upside down. Steve cums and as he does, the thick liquid coats his fist and the major's.

He doesn't like to think often how the abundant ropes turned into the means to slick Bucky's cock, how they rocked and rubbed together in a mess that dripped down onto their pant leg and coated his fingers. It hurts too much to remember how those twin digits buried in his backside kept him producing a constant stream of molten heat until he quivers. He falls flat on his back and his fist falls away from Bucky's shaft. Fingers convulse spontaneously around a memory of the girth they worshipped.

Oh, but in that moment!

He whispers, “Let me please you,” as soon as he can find his jilted tongue.

Bucky murmurs some affirmation, shaking his head.

“Please.” How can he make himself understood? “Need to. _Need you_.”

His shaft quivers, still so damn hard, pointing at the stars over the paler curve of the strong hand capturing it. Can't scream, can't cry out. Stuttering noises repeat themselves as his prostate is besieged in the most serendipitous union of pleasure and ecstatic suffering.

Bucky kisses him and withdraws his fingers. The world collapses back into darkness, leaving behind a void never to be filled. Steve thinks that now. He learns, much later, that missing piece of him can always be found when the evasive words and moments present themselves. Rare times, to be sure, but always willing, always there.

Touch means so very much. He uses too much gentleness to stroke the major, until those sticky fingers wrap around his and show him the way. He is tentative for moments, no more. The emboldened strokes of a man with an incomparable mind and gift for dissembling apply as well in Washington's camp as the bedroom. Bucky is soon clutching the tree and stroking into his fist, meeting him with characteristic audacity and speed.

It lasts far shorter a time than his own release, but his hand ends up milking a font of white seed, hot and potent. He doesn't know what to do with it, but letting it splash on the grass is a terrible waste. Much ends on his hand, on his fingers, across his knuckles.

Bucky watches, eyes glittering, at this new threshold. Of course, Steve does only one thing when confronted by a gate on his path. He runs for it.

His lips descend to taste the hot salt, and the sound from his best friend -- his lover? Is that a thing now? -- sears him again. His tongue steals out and touches the slickness, the essence of Major Barnes. It tastes different, odd. Not bad, but so foreign. So he sucks the slick line into his mouth and then Bucky pushes him back, kissing him again, pinning him to that tree in a moment of undisguised passion and ardent approval.

They do so many things ardently after that.

They make it back to the lodging house an hour later, disheveled, pleasantly content in the way of inebriated soldiers fighting for glory, living hot and fast and bright in their last moments of freedom.

Bucky leads him to the narrow bed, scarce enough for one, and Steve learns to drown so perfectly on the hard length of the major's cock. He shows a talent for wrapping his lips around things and cunning turns of tongue. His deftness asserts itself through practice, and that first night, he learns to suck in earnest.

Clutching the headboard, knees flanking Steve's broad shoulders, Bucky uses shallow thrusts to fit his cock into the blond's mouth. He stares down through his dark lashes. Steve focuses more on the act of not choking gracefully, but when he checks, their gazes meet and that proves heavenly.

He forgets about everything but stroking himself in short, quick jerks and sucking. His mouth travels around the thick girth, almost out the point of gagging when he lifts his head. There's a rhythm to be found, a certain art of the dance or music, in a different way. He raises his head when Bucky glides down and they meet on the pressure point of exquisite delight. Breathe when the thickness pulls back, and again. He learns fast that swallowing right before the major finishes pushing sends Barnes shuddering into pleasure.

It means a salty wetness on his tongue, dripping down his throat.

He nearly leases himself again, diamond hard and ready.

Nothing like this has ever enthralled him quite the same, though making love to ladies of the night holds up equal charms and fascination. He doesn't _care_ for them as he does his brother-in-arms. He hasn't fought for them, almost died for them, the way he has Bucky.

“Please,” he mouths. He's not certain what to ask for, how to say it.

Bucky knows. The bed creaks and the floorboards sag and warble the way they always do if anyone applies their weight. One man groaning in the dark roses no suspicions. At any rate, it's not as though Steve can make a sound, gladly swallowing what he can and finally letting the escalating pace instruct him instead of fighting against it.

When he doesn't splutter, he moans softly and that alone spurs the major to a faster, deep pace. He no longer withdraws past the hot seal of Steve's willing lips, not more than an inch. Gripping the headboard, he drives himself down, discourteous in no sense; Steve wants to deliver the same satisfaction given to him and he cares not about choking.

He feel dim wonder when his mouth presses tight to dark curls of hair at the root of that thick cock. Stars dance in front of his eyes. He strokes himself harder, there, so close to his peak.

Bucky beats him this time, drowning him in a flood, calling his name softly in gratitude and desire and something beyond affection. No apology comes in the churning weight, the deep thrusts that fill the blond's mouth.

He embraces the exhaustion gladly in the first of many nights to come.

 

* * *

 

Breathe. Remember to breathe. The lessons of the battlefield carry Steve forward through the water when his body feels heavy as lead shot and he relies more on the barrel to carry him than his own momentum.

Ahead lies a wall of pure wood, rotting, the holes punctured into it giving off the foulest stench he can possibly name. Nothing gives any sense of preparation for the bilge leaking out of the waterline or a colony of monstrous growths slipping through the pierced boards. No life shows within the battered hulk of a boat. No sign he has avoided a floating graveyard.

That's what the British mean to make of these places. Let the prisoners die in sight of their homeland, their countrymen fighting a doomed battle.

Starvation under the pitiless sun while shackled deprives them of a dream even of liberty. A man in the fort spares his last shot for himself, in times of struggle.

For Bucky, Steve must do this. He cannot provide the shot; something else, redemption on good Virginia soil, that may be within his power.

First he has to climb. The climb is no easy thing, the ship's planks ripped out to avoid anyone falling into the ocean or finding a safe way down for escape. But time offers a hand the British navy does not. Broken chink give a way for an industrious fellow to use, though his shaking limbs and cold body may not comply.

He has no choice, he must act. He forces himself to don his dry gloves after many tries, and he jams his fingers into the crevices. The first steps are always the hardest.

He loves his best friend than nearly anything in this life, except the woman he married. As long as he doesn't lose sight of the fact he has been blessed with the best of men, he clings to life.

Climb. One hand over the other. A new hold to be found, thrusting his waterlogged boot into the next gap. Some allow for a solid thud, a sound that resonates through the night forcefully, a fife and drum corps accompanying him. He dare not freeze in terror, only climb faster. The snail’s pace does not improve readily, his chilled body unable to offer any burst of speed.

For a harrowing time, too long for him to count, Steve lies exposed to any British gunner around the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Every potential bullet or cannonball itches along his shoulders.

He'd take every one for what he finds on deck. Not much of the American ship survives the siege, and the noxious scent climbing it wafts over him. No amount of preparation steels his heart to the awful sight, much less the smell. He vomits back into the sea, at least where he hopes it shall reach the water.

Men dying and dead lie around. Corpses bloated in the sun show every sign of neglect. The agents and spies up and down the coast as far as Massachusetts warn of British treatment of prisoners -- not honourably. No spirit of kindness moves a man to send others of his race floating on the sea, doomed to die.

Starving men will chew their own extremities and devour others. He knows enough of teeth marks to gage that. Still, they die. When chained to the ground or mast or wall, they chew at everything they can. Some sights will never leave his thoughts.

He approaches the first and calls, softly, in English. Invoking Washington's name like a talisman, he whispers for the general or the major he came to claim.

One man, half-dead, riddled by thirst and half mad calls back. One, out of forty, sixty bodies in sight. “General's in the fort.”  
  
They have a target, a truth, if this can be told. Steve's eyes stream and he does not wipe away his tears. Let them be a testament to the malice of warfare, the unjust treatment of soldiers. No one should encounter this, none, and if he lives, he will advocate in sternest terms to Washington. Washington, the general who insists upon the rightful handling of all enemies, that they be fed and housed when his own men go hungry and share rotting tents.

“Godspeed,” he whispers to the dying man. He has no water to offer, only a brush of his hand. “Major Barnes?”

The delirium claims a victim. He must search. Steve strives not to step on bodies or in puddles that add to the despicable conditions, but that is nigh to impossible. Overturned baskets containing moldy food are the least of it. He needs some light to see by, and lacks any as he descends the broken stairs. His ideals shudder as he slips and catches himself, finding death gathered so close and tight.

Captives, so many, lie on bunks and the floor. Any free space he can see in the dim moonlight hosts a limb, a slumped outline. His resolve breaks and he calls, loud as he dares, “Barnes? Major Barnes!”

He will repeat this twice over, abandoning one ship and swimming for another. Each time he discovers a handful of matchstick men alive, ranting and raving. Mistaken for a British sailor, two men curse him to die alone in pain, and rave long after he lies flat in terror, expecting a bombardment from the nearby cannons or naval ships any time.

Attack never comes. Nothing of the sort but the white handkerchief lain on the two ships, nothing but despair and emptiness in his heart. There will be no rescue from these ships. He'd take them all if he could.

Dugan waves his hat from a distant deck. Philip is nowhere to be seen. The plan calls.

Steve dives into the sea. His last hope is the American fort.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arriving in rough conditions at Yorktown, Steve Rogers fights his way into the besieged fort to meet with General Nathanael Greene and find a way to rescue Major Barnes. On his back, the round shield bearing the stars of the Thirteen Colonies. So begins the legend of Captain America.

The sea approach to Fort Hill is enough to make any seasoned soldier despair. Earthworks surrounding the hill from the landward side rear up, as though the very terrain ended up rumpled like a mat. Any trees providing a screen or shade during the blistering humidity of a Tidewater Virginia summer long ago fell to patriot axes. Their sunbleached corpses emerge from the hillside at sharp angles, each tip ending in a vicious hacked spike, and crosshatched abatis bristle in a ring around the fort. 

Such defenses deter ten thousand soldiers of the British Army, but the advantage lies in the men sieging this toehold of the Continental Army. Patriot forces lose men, food, and bullets every day the violence continues. Without any sign of the French navy, and American forces scuttled, they cannot hope for resupply. 

From the sea, they feel very insignificant indeed. Bare earth scorned by cannonfire and regular burnings reveals a pockmarked landscape devoid of comforts. This close to the shore, the little tidy village ought to be surrounded by fields of softly nodding grass and trees slowly adorning themselves with autumn foliage. Instead, he makes out the blasted shapes of blackened trees twisted in the darkness or simply broken off like matchsticks.

Cold and wet creep into his bones. The ocean holds no echo of summer warmth in its muddy, silt-ridden depths. His heavy coat, such a burden weighing him down when he left the  _ Brunswick _ , shrouds what little heat his body can generate close. For all the pains and fatigue nipping his heels, he knows stopping now is certain death. He might slip under the waves long before a patriot soldier hurls a precious hand grenade at him or a British sharpshooter gets lucky. 

He sees the boobytraps on the narrow shingle from afar, jagged bits of metal jammed into stony nooks and lengths of chain strung between undersea rocks hidden by the high tide. Glimmering moonlight shatters on the folded, rippling water broken in white surf against the pebbles. Any hope he spared for going unseen vanished long ago; the moon is close to full, favouring the British and scolding his arrogance.

Somewhere behind him, Timothy Dugan coughs weakly. The brave Irishman tried to keep him swimming by whispering hints about the camp, reminding him of facts, until neither of them could spare the breath. Moving on takes every ounce of Steve’s dwindling reserves, and he has yet to slip into the fort to rescue Major Barnes.

Assuming Barnes even lives. He believed his best friend convalesced on the prison ships, but Dugan and his manservant, Philip, confirmed in shakes of their head finding no evidence for him or General Nathanael Greene. Small mercies, that both might live. The odds in the fort greatly exceed those with the exposed, starving men chained and left or dead in the refloated wrecks of their navy.

Steve’s anger bubbles in his breast. Rage fuels him about as well as hope or righteousness, and that’s about all he has to go on. Better to die on land by a shot than suffer a slow, ignoble death. He cannot understand how the crew of the  _ Brunswick _ , like many other freebooters or smugglers, can sail past without offering aid. How can the Royal Navy endure those piteous cries until no one moves under the burning sun?

He has no means to quell righteous hate or address the seditions accused on legislators and soldiers of the colonies. Britain believes the revolution a stain on the soul, and offers no quarter to its rebellious subjects. Whatever the colonies’ position, their men pay the price when caught. Shuddering, his teeth chattering, he has to find his way to the shallows. 

When the sea breaks on muddy rocks, he barely has strength to pull himself up. Precious time wasted looking over his shoulder only multiplies his troubles. He cannot see Dugan’s unruly curls or Philip’s broad pate. Their descendants, if any, will surely curse him for abandoning his faithful friends. Will future generations look on his efforts as idiocy of the highest calibre, or brave beyond reckoning?

1781 was to be the year of triumph, not tribulation, the hour of the Revolution’s great success. Instead, he crawls along, an old man bent over and gasping for breath he cannot adequately pull. Knees locked with the icy cold fail to support him. His legs wobble and collapse under his weight, sending him face first into the surf. Facedown into the water, he splutters and struggles to bring his head higher, enough to breathe freely, rather than drowning.

Drowning, a risk this close to land. His stiff hands claw at the pebbles and come away scraped, a chunk of broken glass poking out of his glove. Only the broken edge grazes his palm, the salt of the sea burning deep in the shallow wound. At least that reminds him he lives, his skin bleeding and raw, smarting in pain. 

The climb up three prison hulks wasted his strength. Now he crawls out of the water’s edge and falls forward, cheek on the mucky sand. For a time all he can manage to do is lie there, as good as a corpse. A nagging thought dances at the edges of his fading consciousness, insistent that he not slip away into the dull, distant warmth accosting his legs and all points below his navel. Like slipping into a lukewarm bath, that sensation lulls him from alertness. A dazed memory flits past, as hard to catch as a dragonfly on the wing, some idea that a risk goes with the cold.

His arm flails about to find the trusty keg he swam upon, but it is lost to the tide or hellfire and brimstone for all he knows. Shadows lurk on the fringes, and he mumbles to them, skimming his arm about. A sack floats past his fingers, knocked about by the waves.

A heavy sack. Its contents are wide and broad. The ache in his belly reminds him of crushing hunger, and bring with it a reminder of taverns and filling meals over the dwindling lucidity. Once he ate his fill in the best of company, with best of wives and best of men, days long lost to the joyous spring of their revolution. 

These are the times that try men’s souls. He struggles to stand by the service to his country and memory of better times. Crabbed fingers slip at the dampened knots closing up the sack, failing and trying again. A splotch of blue and red wink up at him. Bleary eyes gone gritty from salt cannot fully focus, but he drags himself atop the shield as he pulls it closer. The gentle dome keeps his chest and face off the sand, and there he rests.

He should not rest or he will meet all those gone before him on the other side. That thought eluding him comes back to the fore, some camp surgeon’s declaration. When the sensation grows warm when he should be cold, a soldier is done for. 

Ahead of him lie the bluffs under assault by British batteries and Hessian units -- the Germans, thorough and proud as the Redcoats themselves. Two American redoubts remain beyond the wooden palisade, the last line of defense before the fort finally falls. He knows of their existence only by study of maps and the faintest hint of smoke, for the night this close to the river and the sea are too cold to endure without heavy blankets or fire.

Fire. Steve dare not linger too much on the sensation. He crawls on his forearms until his belly breaches the crest of the shield, and he slithers out of the surf. Seawater drips from his boots. Other than the pitiless stars and the offshore frigate  _ Charon  _ holding her dark watch, he is utterly alone. 

Ambition is his folly, this he sees. Ambition alone may be the last thing keeping him alive. He spends too long sliding the shield over his arm and against his back, clothed still in the sack. That might give a little defense to anyone firing at him. Then he begins to crawl. He cannot walk.

 

* * *

 

If he lives, he will never describe fully how he drags himself into the camp. Men on patrol never expect his presence, this half-drowned water wraith risen from the Chesapeake to claim their godly souls. The first man is American, unshaven, face gaunt and grave in every sense. He raises his rifle and jabs a bayonet at Steve’s back while he slumps over a submerged log, part of the lashed branches used to defend the low-lying beach.

The sharp steel pierces the upper meat of Steve’s arm and strikes the shield, deflecting wide and promptly shattering. Cursing his luck, the soldier charges, as though he intends to bodily impale the blond against one of the sharp spikes. Naturally, Steve’s recourse takes him into the sand and mud, falling onto his belly, cursing in raspy words.

“I’m a friend, stop! I’m with Washington.”

He gained parts of a New York accent despite the accident of birth elsewhere. How hard to believe his own voice lacks any volume past a grating whisper.

Perhaps the general favours him on this suicidal mission even from afar. At least the name  _ Washington  _ amounts to something, a pause. The next blow isn’t coming in a moment.

“Look at the shield. Look!” Steve scrabbles at the shield to reveal the mark of the thirteen stars, the symbol of their revolution. 

The man drops his rifle, and wipes the mud off it. “Why would you come to Hell?”

“Can’t leave my friends behind,” he says, and manages a weak smile before he collapses.

Fate brings him into a dingy headquarters, a small building surrounded by tents in the very saddest of states. Had General Washington himself stood on the bluffs, he should think the situation worthy of despair. Major Barnes’ letter barely captured the truth by half. Dugan’s testimony before the senior staff cannot possibly capture the spareness, a lethargy hanging in the air seeking its next victim.

They have nothing to share and his own supplies are waterlogged, salt-wrecked. He rests in a cot, no doubt its previous owner shooed or lost to a bullet. Two wool blankets heaped over him give some warmth after they strip off his uniform and coat. Fuel is in short supply, so the unknown well-wishers push him close to the nearest fire and leave him at three or four paces. Steve lapses in and out of unconsciousness, muttering names, charms against death.

When he is well enough to crack open his eyes, a weary man spoons watery broth past his cracked lips and insists that he drink a ration of tepid water that tastes divine. One thing alone exceeds that satisfying sip, and it cannot be found in this camp. It only exists in a bedroom in an occupied city four colonies away, long lost to General Howe and thirty thousand British troops. 

“General,” he says in a moment of clarity, trying to sit up. “I have a message--”

The older gentleman maintains a shabby dignity about him, though he lacks a coat. He extends his hand to Steve’s chest, pushing him back into the cot. “You’re lucky to get better, son. Rest now. Nothing good here happens in haste.”

“A message for--” He starts to hack and the water comes again to his lips, held by that patient hand until he takes his fill.

“A message from General Washington.” Creases mark the lack of sleep around the older man’s face. “I imagine that is well and long overdue. No chance he is over the horizon with the men Congress promised and finally outfitted?”

Steve would love to say a ship waits in the harbour but he shakes his head. The accepting nod from the older fellow breaks his heart, an acceptance the end has come and all passes as it must. An attitude he cannot understand himself. “General Greene, I’m here for  _ you _ .”

Greene halts. He squints at the bedraggled man and dabs his brow with a dirtied cloth. The room offers little by way of conveniences or luxury save relative warmth, a fire built up for Steve’s health. Such kindness surely comes dear when their supplies are thin and stale at best. “Have we been introduced? You have me at disadvantage.”

“Rogers.” He coughs again, and holds up his hand weakly to stave off the water offered anew. It will not help. “Steven Rogers, captain, sir.” 

“Washington’s aide.” 

His title sounds better than secretary and for that, Steve warms considerably to Greene. He knows much of the general’s reputation -- the whole staff does, and think highly of him. An upstanding man who tolerates little brawling or gambling in his men, he leads by example. Such a man is trapped among his forces here, rather than fleeing for safety north. 

Steve nods. “I’m sorry not to bear better tidings yet at my back.”

“Short of the French dancing arm-in-arm with the Continental Army over the rise, I expect little to turn the tide tonight. You should rest.”

“How long?” 

“It’s not yet dawn. You recover quick, young man, if I may say so.” Greene sits back against the wall, his camp chair creaking under his weight. “Another able pair of arms would not be unwelcome. The British?”    
  
“The British, sir? I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” Steve needs the time to put together his thoughts. Hours, not days. He has been a guest here and no telling how Philip or Dugan get along. His whirling mind slips and spins over uncertainties, and he tugs at the borrowed shirt he wears.

“Yes. I presume you were caught up by the blockade?” Greene asks.

“No. Not exactly. I was breaking through it.” This news puts Greene’s eyebrows up and his mouth open in an unspoken question. Tired beyond words, Steve runs his hand through his hair. “The men who broke out here a fortnight past? Dugan? He brought word to us at Philadelphia. Washington knows of your dire circumstances and if I can, I’m to bring you out.”

Greene smiles, weak as the gesture is. “I won’t leave my men and your eloquence and bravery will not convince me otherwise. A commander doesn’t abandon the camp. Nor have I intentions to surrender unless you mean to say those forces are inside my front porch.”

The nearness of the British forces cannot be underestimated. Their lighter guns punch through the outer walls and leave the fields perilous to anyone who dares face them from Yorktown. Without looking outside, Steve knows the dangers. He feels about and sits up on the cot, fighting wooziness. “Sir, I have a critical question.”

“Ask.”

“Major Barnes?” He cannot put paid to the rest of the inquiry. He cannot make futures happen by announcing their likelihood.

Greene’s expression softens. Here is a man used to delivering hard news and bad tidings, using a touch light as a feather. “Ah.”

Cold, bony fingers reach into Steve’s breast and clutch his heart. A single sound wounds him to the quick and he sits back down on the cot. “I see.”

“Bloody Ban,” Greene explains. “He takes whatever he likes. Rides around out there with impunity and Cornwallis won’t lift a finger, naturally, to check that miscreant.” He checks his own intention there, clearly biting off a harsher word, his tone even though his face twists somewhat in clear repugnance. 

“Then the body…?”    
  
“Let me grant you peace of mind on that front. The major should yet live. The British haven’t sunk so low as torture of officers, that much we may thank the good Lord for. Everything short of it, though? I hardly know.” He bitterly waves his hand out there.

Steve buries his face in his hands, lurched over the rough floor. “I checked the ships, in hopes of finding him.”

Surprise turns into outright shock. Greene clicks his mouth shut and moves to wrap a wool blanket around Steve’s shoulders. “Young man, you can’t be serious. You did not attempt the prison ships scuttled in the river.”

“Several. The  _ Trumbull _ and the  _ Revenge _ ,” the young captain says. “The third, I didn’t see her name.”

Might as well announce himself as the French king in disguise, come to hearten the patriots and escape the miseries of the court, for the reception he receives is halfway between astonishment and undisguised confusion. “How? With the British in the water, we scuttled what we had. Don’t tell me you swam.”

He nods dimly.

Barking an unbelieving laugh, Greene falls back into his chair heavily. “To have friends like that is a precious and rare thing. Alas your determination brings you to me in such straitened conditions. I can do little for you, Rogers.”

“I expect nothing to be done, sir, other than pointing me in the direction of Major Barnes.”

Steve will reach Barnes come hell or high water. He’s made it this far playing his hand. He sweeps the room for his things, seeing the peg on the wall holding his coat and his shield tipped against the wall below.

“Son, I pray you forgive me for saying so, but you’re barely in any condition to take on Tarleton.” Every word meant well stings him worse than the cuts he took climbing out of the beach and rounding the bluffs. Nathanael Greene is not a man known for unnecessary cruelty or mincing words, a reason why General Washington holds him in great esteem. “He and his black-knights prance around the battery.”

Resolve slips back in. One last play, one last act. He can do this. “Where?” 

Greene spreads his hands in front of him. “Due south past one of our fallen redoubts, number five. You’ve not a hope of reaching it, the  _ Guadeloupe  _ is a twenty-eight gunner haunts the coast in full reach. Together with their shore batteries, we haven’t a chance of breaking out. I barely managed to bring the fusiliers back into the fort intact.”  

Twenty-eight cannons and whatever remains in the redoubt, atop the shelter provided by the British battery, amount to an impossible situation. Steve knows the chance of taking the redoubt alone is nigh to impossible. “How intact is the building?”

“Fully. The walls never broke and Tarleton’s legion encamped beyond it. Reaching your goal may be impossible. But I know that look in your eye.” The general shakes his head. “I counsel you to wait, but essentially, that amounts to surrender, capitulation, or death.”

None of which settle well with the captain. “I thank you for everything you have offered, sir, and prevail on you once more if I may.”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever parlay with the British?” 

“I cannot think of much to say.” Greene measures him up, eyes thoughtful and searching. “Why?”

“I would have a word with them.” Steve swallows. 

“On what grounds?” 

The slow smile touching Steve’s mouth is a tad frosty. “Specifically, I wish to challenge Banastre Tarleton to a duel. His honour won’t accept turning that down.”

Whatever else, Tarleton might ride out like a devil from the burning pits to deliver his particular brand of revenge, given the opportunity. Should he respond, Steve holds a chance of settling matters and perhaps saving Major Barnes. At worst, he dies in front of the British forces.

Greene must believe him utterly mad as a hatter, but he rises from his chair again. “Cornwallis might.”

“And Tarleton is a force unto himself, all have said that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story very much reverses the position of Lord Cornwallis and the British Army south of the Virginia Line. Instead, we have the Continental Army's southern portion led by General Nathanael Greene holed up in Yorktown. The British, Loyalist colonists, Hessian (German) mercenaries, and Native Americans encircle the fort in a double ring. British ships barricade Chesapeake Bay to prevent American forces from coming south from Maryland and the future Washington, D.C. area. Morale is terrible, the situation is dire, and supplies are running out. 
> 
> As for the French, Lafayette sent to France for ships and guns -- and he got them. Problem is, Comte de Grasse, the French admiral, had to round up all those boats from the Caribbean, rendezvous with a force from Rhode Island, and get it all done before the advent of hurricane season in the Atlantic. As the Battle of Yorktown takes place over late September to early October 1781, de Grasse is fighting to outrun the storms. The British, comfortably in shallower, protected waters, know it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected rendezvous brings much-needed hope to Captain Rogers. Given every sign shows that Bloody Banastre Tarleton, the major of the dreaded British Legion, is keeping Bucky prison for good, Steve needs all the help he can get.

While General Greene consults with his officers about the particulars of arranging a duel, Steve stalks through the impoverished fort. A restless air drives him out. His thoughts cannot settle after a close brush with death, after inviting a second so soon.

He takes to the ragged pathways carved up by Patriot units. Someone with an ironic sense of humor names the various rutted trenches that separate buildings after the states. One wooden post reads _Delaware_ and chalk on another declares _Penn. Road_ where damage destroyed the original name.

Men rest wherever they can find the means, leaning against posts or slumped in sheltered corners. Their piteous state hurts to see. Their clothes are filthy and mended roughly, but the toll of the siege lies in their faces more than their gaunt bodies. An unwashed scent of sweat and fear rolls up from the churned muck. Deep weariness bruises faces of young men, most no more than twenty and some. A dull gleam to their eyes speaks of hardship and sorrow unending.

Each who raises his head to acknowledge him, a well-fed stranger, leaves a nail of guilt slammed into his soul. These are Major Barnes’ brothers and his men, the regiments and units that he fought bitterly to free. He spent many nights lifting their spirits while the British slam their embattled defenses with a ceaseless crackle of cannon fire.

The first bombardment after his awakening he barely took note of. Battle in Washington's quarter seasoned him to the noises, though nothing insures a man to the shockwave of impact, the cries of anger and fear. When he murmurs quietly to a soldier from Maryland, not more than eighteen, the cannons from a southern battery shout.

“Take cover!” Steve cries out to the others.

They already know the drill. Alarm runs up and down the lines. Everyone out of cover hastens to find shelter, and those along the walls and behind the earthen slope against the palisade hunker lower. Steve drops low and creeps up to the threshold of the reinforced slatted palisade. He unslings his rifle from his back against the shield, slowly growing aware of the looks shot at his back, those pointing.

The heavy sack flumps to his boots. Its contents, what he could spare from drying by the cook fire, make less noise than the whispers through the distant thundering of those six pounders in British hands. Thirteen stars grace his back. Thirteen stars in a ring of steel, blood, and sea.

Whatever Peggy and Major Stark managed on this shield, it's a featherweight compared to the gun in his hands.

“You think this is the response to a call for a ceasefire?” he shouts to the nearest soldier.

“Nay, just the cocks of the walk as usual,” calls the Maryland boy.

The sky still shows the absolute velvety darkness of nightfall. Stars yet shine along with the sparks and smoke pouring over the field. Steve flinches back when a cannonball strikes the ground not ten meters from his current position, throwing up a spray of dirt.

“What's your name?”

The Marylander beside him blinks, and clutches his gun. No one bothers yet to hastily fill their shot. What army marches under cover of darkness? The soldier swallows. “Kidd,” he says. “Rufus Kidd.”

An apt name as any. Steve smiles. “Kidd,” he says. “Steven Rogers.”

“Captain Rogers?”

Innocence in a question that leaves him stumbling. “You know me?”

“No, but I know about you. Heard a few things about how you stole a cannon in New York,” Kidd says. He breaks into an uncertain grin. “Bloodied Howe's nose that way. I'd give plenty for that cannon again.”

Silence lands upon them in the deafening cacophony of another cannon. This one strikes deep into the fort. They can only cope with the madness when a Patriot falls, his chest caved in. No hope of saving him or the bloodied soldier next to him, but the wooden frame of a shelled building around them threatens to collapse.

Steve doesn't think, he merely acts. Yanking the shield off his back, he raises it over his head to shelter himself from the falling spars and bits of flame. Further down the line, another ball smashes through the wooden line, taking out another man. General Greene will have another list of names delivered before dawn, condolences waiting for the moment he has paper or officers to inform.

“Wait, come back! It's wide open!” Kidd shrinks against the wall.

They all stare as he goes, and he thinks nothing. If the British justify an attack in the pre-dawn, it will have catastrophic consequences. Steve sees the exhausted forces, the frantic search for safe spaces. Dwindling resources must account for a failure to fire back. An impending disaster hinges on how long American spirit and bullets or gunpowder hold out.

He dashes to his knees and raises the shield over himself and a fallen man, scant years younger than him, his face bloodied and ashen. Wiping dust from the soldier's face, Steve touches his throat to feel a pulse. The beat dances frantic under his fingertips.

“Stay with me, man. Come on.”

A mutter passes the semi-conscious soldier's lips. His eyes roll behind his fluttering lashes. Steve kneels to scoop him up, hauling him over his shoulder. Those pains that struck him in the sea announce themselves loudly, but he pushes through the hurt.

“Which way to the medic’s tent?“ he calls.

They look at him through owl eyes, whites showing, staring at the display of something profound. It should not be. But he gestures with his arm. “Which way?”

Hands point and he hastens to deliver the injured man to safety through fallen spars and weary bodies. He jogs on, bursting into a sick room thick with the scent of illness and unwholesome things. A wearied physician gestures to a makeshift cot, then startles as he looks up.

“It's just you?”

“I brought him directly,” Steve says. He gently lays down the shocked soldier onto the cot, carefully lowering him.

“Yes, and the other men who helped you?” The physician mops his brow with his sleeve. Here the air rings thick with smoke and dust. “Are they back to their posts?”

“Just me.”

Surprise resolves to a weary expression, and the physician turns to check the man's condition. “Has Greene kept you in the basement?”

Steve blinks in confusion, and shakes his head. Perhaps he hears wrong through the ringing echoes of the cannons still setting his ears to vibrating. “Sir, I don't understand what you imply. Have I done something wrong?”

“Not at all.” The physician gestures to an orderly for a  wet cloth and a bowl. “If we all had your spirit and strength, we might well be out of here. I haven't seen someone like you since--”

“Rogers?” A man calls from the corner and sits up. Steve's hand clasps his side, and he does the unthinkable, turning to close the distance past the convalescent patients.

“Philip. I thought I lost you back there. You're hale?”  
  
A blanket swaddles his manservant, and his pale skin looks all the fairer in the fitful light. But he gives that small smile traced by so much irony. They come closer and Philip replies in French, as is sometimes his habit. “No worse for a dip. They warmed me up here. I would hear nothing of it, but they insisted.”

“Anything of Dugan? Forgive me, I lost all sense of time.”

Of anything but Barnes. To his credit, Philip forgives the sleight far more gracefully than the captain has any right to expect.

“You've been awake no more than an hour and setting the world upside down?” Philip says, and to that, Steve blushes.

The physician soon enough closes on their company, and Steve confirms he knows the patient. That alone is reason enough for the pair of them to be rooted from a needed bed, which Philip graciously accedes to. Slipping out into the cool, fraught pre-dawn, the men limp along a rutted path east.

“Have you heard anything of Dugan?” Steve says.

Philip nods. He huddles in his oversized jacket, something easily two sizes too large, holding the coat around himself. “Boy sucked half the river down. He's in a cot somewhere, looked over by other soldiers. Space in the hospital is too precious to waste on someone who can still keep yapping.”

Shoulders sagging, the captain breathes out a sigh of relief. Guilt withers in his stomach. “Good. I led him back here to captivity. I will take you and him back out along with Barnes,” he says, clasping his fist to his heart. “I swear it.”

“We have faith in you. But I found no trace of Barnes on any of the ships.” Philip's brow rumples, his sandy hair standing straight up after a pass of his palm. “We might ask about.”  
  
“General Greene told me he's in Tarleton's hands. I presume the black-knight taunted them.” The mere notion flips Steve's stomach. Low growls twist his voice into a primal incandescence, the savage declaration of an alpha against a rival. A rival he can neither see nor hear.

“The _cretin_ ,” Philip swears in French, a milder oath than he usually allows. Swearing at all speaks to his dire mood. “Still alive?”

Steve nods sharply. His chin dips and he presses his brow to a scarred, pockmarked wall of some tiny cottage turned over to bunks for too many soldiers. “I challenged him to a duel. Tarleton has his unit arrayed around a redoubt. According to the general, it's near impossible to storm them. Not with three men.”

“Obviously so. What about three hundred?”  
  
“I remember how that turned out for Sparta and King Leonidas. I rather like Arthur's outcome better,” he says in a dry tone. “Even if I could magically gather three hundred men, we stand a poor chance of success fighting uphill against cavaliers and fusiliers.”

Philip chuckles, a wet sound. “You think a personal duel will settle the matter? This isn't the Dark Ages.”

“He might owe me Major Barnes if he loses.”  
  
“Tarleton is well-rested and well-fed, sir. You just swam across the Chesapeake, and forgive me, lack the characteristics to be assured a win.”   
  
Steve rubs his brow. Philip offers sound advice, one of his stellar qualities, and rarely speaks without measured contemplation. A different man might well offend his sense of honour, but his manservant is cut from another cloth entirely. “You mean he's a better shot than me.”   
  
“I mean he's bloodthirsty.” Philip tugs on his worn cuff, pulling back the heavy fold from his knuckles. “Tarleton's quarter means something. Men say that about him because he never wastes his shot or holds back. You might be honourable. He will shoot you the moment the countdown is over.”

A man willing to capture an officer and refuse all offers for a hostage trade would shoot a duelist before they reach one. Who would the Americans appeal to with the British Army over the rise?

Curse it all. Philip brings up an excellent point.

“You've put a rock in the field,” he says. “Is it too late for finding three hundred regulars?”

“I doubt that very much, sir. Look around you.” Philip raises his hand in a broad sweep that encloses the stone building, the palisade, and the humble buildings. “What do you see?”

Steve sees an army without hope, men biding their time until surrender or death. He sees no chance of succor over the sea. No ships on the water streaming the gold-and-cream fleur de lys of France, or the standard of the Revolution. A dearth of resources guarantees their precarious existence.

“I cannot take them and leave Yorktown depleted.”  
  
“Have you asked General Greene?”   
  
“No. It's insubordinate.”   
  
“Or brave, spitting in the eye of the army.”

Steve crosses his arms over his chest. “Three hundred men, watched by ten thousand.”  
  
“That duel makes a good feint of yours.” Kidd, the Maryland soldier, pipes up from a distance. No telling how long he has been there. “I would go, sir.”

His earnest face holds a light, a glimpse of something almost like excitement. Seeds of belief take root in an option that Steve dreads watering, in case that spreads.

Philip nods, a sage prophet of sorts. The long, measured look settles upon Steve. He remains in control -- as the captain and the master -- and the decisions fall in his hands. Leadership carries a terrifying aspect, along with the liberating power of choice.

“I appreciate that you're willing to serve. But I can't recruit men without General Greene's approval. Nor would I want to undermine him,” Steve says.

The uneasy mood bubbles up and down, then Kidd snaps a salute. “You go ask him and I promise you'll have three hundred men. We don't want to sit here and wait when we could do good.”

“You would be putting your lives at risk,” Steve says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “We're outgunned and outmatched in every sense. My intent to rescue Major Barnes and bring him back will not bring victory or gain ground.”

The soldier nods, slipping his heavy gun over his shoulder by the strap. “Major Barnes led men out and paid a heavy price for bravery. They're free because he gave himself.”

Looking over his shoulder, Steve presses his lips into a tight white line. Gaze askance, he meets the concerned grey eyes of his manservant. An extension of regal will and foreign alliance, packaged in one man. Philip steadies him.

“I'll speak with General Greene,” he whispers.

Kidd snaps a loose salute and dashes off. Steve keeps hold of his dignity long enough for the young man to disappear before he goes to his knees. The shield he detaches from his shoulders, and holds it in front of him. Stars glimmer pure and clean. He brushes away a dot of dirt.

“I've got a worse idea. The general would be right to jail me for it.”

“This is a jail, you might note.” Philip gives that crooked little smirk again. “The worst you can do is ask.”  
  
“No, the worst I can do is succeed,” Steve says.

 

* * *

 

Daybreak brings a rather weak pot of coffee and rationed meal -- sloppy porridge principally made of water and light on oats. A few dotted spots look like dirt, and might well be the crackling of the evening's meal. Steve dips his spoon into the lumped oats, stirring them around in slow circles.

“My man reported back. The British nearly shot his hat off.” Greene's irritation proves strong as he sits in the middle of the dining room. A few chairs and table function as the bare minimum of hospitality. “Your request for a duel with Tarleton was met with disbelief and they intend to convey the message. We might expect a response of a cannonball or a man under a white flag.”

Better than he possibly expected. Steve mouths a spoonful of the watery porridge. More soup than not, but the flavour at least eases the gnawing in his belly. “Thank you, sir.”

The invitation from the general for breakfast hardly surprised anyone. They shared updates about the state of affairs in the northern and middle colonies. Weeks under siege and no messengers leave General Greene hungry for news, stale though that may be. He peppers the conversation with pointed questions and draws his own conclusions in silence, alert and respectful of Steve's answers.

Much like Washington, Greene invites confidences with the fullness of his attention. He exudes confidence when Steve suggests the chance of a raid on the base.

“As for this proposal of yours. It's rather late in the game for an attack on Tarleton's base. I will not lie to you,” the general muses, poking at a lump of oats cooked into a jellied mass. “He bedevils us and his sallying up to our very gates disheartens the men. His taunts warrant a response. But taking those boys out with the _Guadeloupe_ or _Charon_ haunting the water invites disaster.”   
  
“Sitting still won't win us much, either.” Steve carves out the bottom of the bowl with his worn wooden spoon. “It's a thin chance of hope, but a hope all the same. We steal Major Barnes from under their nose and that counts for something.”

“Three hundred men.” Greene sets aside his bowl. “Assuming they volunteer for the task, you ask a great deal. Your reputation with Washington precedes you. I have no doubt of your personal interest in this. Give me three good reasons I should let you lead them.”  
  
_Peggy. Philip. Bucky._

He can hardly plead his wife or his manservant. “I can offer you only two, sir. It's the right thing to do and I would hope no Patriot left me behind.”  
  
Greene folds his hands in prayer and rests his chin against the ridge of his knuckles. “No, we cannot have that. Not as an army, not as men of God.” The cant of his head forward almost implies bending in prayer. “No man left behind.”   
  
A powerful statement for men forged in war. They know the terror of a line firing upon them. In the swirl of smoke and the burst of fire from gun barrels, the mind screams to flee. Survival trumps assistance and cooperation. They learn to repress those instincts and scoop up the wounded in their retreat.

“I'll do my best, sir. As long as he is out there, I have to try. I am not asking you to send anyone with me. Tarleton has a dark reputation. Major Barnes would come hell or high water for me.” Steve gestures. “I'll do the same for him. With your blessing, let me try to rescue the major. Your men spared to draw off Tarleton's legion gives me a chance to get through.”

“Find your three hundred then, and we'll lay out the plan for it. No doubt the moment we put the finishing touches on an idea, Tarleton will swagger in demanding his duel.” Greene sets aside his bowl, pushing back his chair. “Finish up your breakfast. I'll need to gather our officers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun researching Banastre Tarleton, who deserves an ongoing story arc of his own. Hmm, maybe the ongoing adventures of Major Barnes, Captain America, and the Howling Commandos... 
> 
> He takes the role of Red Skull in our retelling of the Captain America: the First Avenger in the Revolutionary War. However, Tarleton doesn't have the Tesseract or a problem with his face falling off at inconvenient moments. Americans dreaded Tarleton and his men right up til the near end of the war. Calling him only Bloody Ban doesn't do him justice. 
> 
> [Major Tarleton](https://www.nps.gov/cowp/learn/historyculture/lieutenant-colonel-banastre-tarleton.htm) struck out with a cavalry force, fighting guerrilla-style through Virginia. He showed complete competency and had quite a bit in common with Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton's military experience. Though he bought himself an officer rank, he certainly knew what he was about. His green-coated legion put the fear of God into farmers and soldiers alike until he was defeated in a lopsided battle with completely exhausted men.


	9. Chapter 9

No sacred stars guide him like a pathfinder of old. He lacks the shelter of the trees, the forest that once cloaked the spit of land around the fort at Yorktown burned to the ground or cleared away. No army would allow the screen of the woods to encroach so close to a palisade or stand in front of their men. Woodlands surround the British encampment beyond the rise. All the intelligence he obtained from Dugan and the few men knowledgeable about the lay of the land tells him the best chance for survival might be reaching the treeline.

Bucky knew this. He led his men until hunted down by Tarleton. All his legion needed were beagles to make it a proper foxhunt after the British fashion. 

Fires blaze in the distance and the mouths of the cannons. Another grueling day pushes back the last of the patriot resistance to their final redoubts, nine and ten, and Nathanael Greene very much doubts how long those will hold out. Too many men swarm close for the Patriot forces to endure longer than a day or two. Initial pokes over the past eleven hours reveal the holes in their defenses. 

His handpicked three hundred stood in agitated alertness long after dusk crep in from the east, consumed by the awful weight of anticipation. It would have been kinder to launch a strike before twilight. They endure as they amass against the far side of the fort. A detachment of men from Maryland who agree to hold the line make a diversionary force along the opposite end of the fort, conveniently situated close to the redoubts.

If the British cease pricking holes in the defenses and commit, the columns clearly intend to rush out from behind the protection of their grand battery. Hessians arrayed further along the field present another front pressuring redoubt nine. Greene expects to find his men racing back any time now if they are not completely overrun. 

An hour after twilight settles in, and the detente opens as the men withdraw to their respective lines, the signal falls. A volley of fire from the American guns, heavy and formidable things with a greater range than their British counterparts, roar out to the eastern side of the fort. Cries ring out up and down the foreign line -- English, German, the odd smattering of foreign tongues of the Native peoples.

The signal given, the three hundred burst out through the parted gates in the palisade. They thunder down the Potomac Road, a trail blasted into the turf by the retreating men and caught horses. Three hundred on foot, running for their lives, howling in tongues -- as dreadful a sight as anything imaginable. Their ragged line advances and halts, good soldiers dropping to one knee to fire. 

Smoke swirls white and gossamer into the air. They dash ahead onto the source of the attack, seeking to pull Tarleton’s riders out on foot or a-horse, if the fates insist. Their feet strike the ground in a steady tattoo, broken in tempo only to reload from dwindling powder stores. Shot stuffed deep in the rifles contribute to the pauses, before they prepare to shoot again. A far distance, to be sure, but the nightfall makes it difficult for the batteries to distinguish the hounds of hell going after their golden cow, their sacred battalion encamped contemptuously far from the shelter of the British Army.

Greene’s officers keep up the crashing volleys. They break the enchantment of another stalemate, the dreadful curse of a siege. Responding strikes provided by the manpower roused from their meals or their tents will make short work of the respite found for supper.

In this all, Steve stalks like the red horse of war. He lopes behind the screen of the men, so terribly young and some veterans willing to lay down their lives for their country, for him. Someone spread the word he carries the favour of General Washington, and such a bold feint might allow for distraction for Washington’s forces to cover the distance from some place beyond the British supply lines.

He argued against those stories until Philip laid a hand on his arm, and what harm will it do? The rumours take on a life of their own. If they grant Hermes’ own fleetness of foot and agility, so be it. Considering the alacrity of their advance and the need for surprise, he finds himself charging just to keep up with his protection.

But their whole purpose to draw out Tarleton requires him to part company all too soon, an altogether unhappy prospect. He dashes out away from the first ragged wedge of men turning, wheeling around to throw their shots at the door of Tarleton’s fallen temple. They’ve taken to calling the redoubt his pit of depravity or the butchery, a hint of the evil deeds performed where God can’t even see. 

Rumours. They fuel the will to fight and gird a man to do the impossible. He knows better than to take those talismans away from men likely to stand together and die together. The likelihood of success has never amounted to much.

He trades his many comforts in Philadelphia for a taste of the hardship experienced by Major Barnes in Yorktown. Safety beckoned in the sea, and he left it. The safety relative to the open field lies behind him, engulfed in leonine roars of defiance. Someone takes up a fife and the skirling wail of the pipes somehow cuts above the booming noise of the cannons. Shot claims victims on both sides. They’re giving him cover to act.

“Get out fast and give ‘em hell,” shouts one of the men, bright-eyed, wild as they hunt.

The riders plunge out through the wooden palisade around the redoubt. He watches the first men pull up their horses from the pickets, the foot soldiers dashing after them to take up a place to shoot. Soon the space separating Americans and British becomes a no man’s land, backed up by the back of the cannons. Tarleton himself might be stirring among the green-coated legionnaires mustered to answer this foolishness.

Urgency pushes him forward. He must get out of the middle and reach a closer range. Steve runs as fast as he ever has, and hardly knows he has made it until he crashes through the thin row of carts established as a mockery to the Americans. The guns might reach the baggage train supporting Tarleton’s Legion, but they will only demolish one or two loads of supplies from an endless, snaking line. 

One more man among those stationary carts might be hard to see in the chaos unleashed under the poured ink shadows. Banked fires and lanterns throw ghoulish, exaggerated silhouettes, and Steve drops to his hands and knees to keep cover among the quarrelsome quartermaster distributing weapons to those foolish enough to sleep without their guns at arm’s reach. Watching the next batch of green-clad soldiers dash off to kill his countrymen stirs up a burning sentiment in his breast.

He  _ must  _ save them. It’s not enough to simply recover Major Barnes. The mission became so much more when he failed to look, a chance to inspire the Patriots to hold on a little longer. Was not Sparta the same for successive generations, a watchword for bravery and holding the line against significantly -- no, overwhelming -- forces invading by sea and land? 

This will be his stand.

He ducks around the cart and brings his fists up, punching the quartermaster with a clean clock across the jaw. Another soldier turns and he ducks the strike, launching two or three of his own. Something about committing to his country fires Steve, leaving him bursting with energy that exceeds the rush of adrenaline from running through the gates. Efficient blows make short work of the quartermaster, but not the soldiers left behind and others hear the scuffle.

The blow of a rifle butt to the face and a second to the solar plexus damages any ability to carry on. When the soldier falls, Steve launches himself into the next cart and huddles behind a crate of ammunition. Counting down to ten, he leaves the rifle unloaded and listens for trouble. Those who come dash on past him, likely unaware a lone soldier lurks in their baggage train.

Time slows down as he creeps out from under a tarp cover and dashes inwards, awaiting the man who calls out the quartermaster is down. He must be long gone by then, sliding and dashing among the frantic horseflesh picketed nearby. Milling beasts used to the throes of battle have no love of cannonfire, and their distressed confusion aids him in slipping through the guard. 

One man sometimes may do what a thousand cannot.

Zigzagging through the array requires him to wait with baited breath around corners or push on, giving his best approximation of an English accent. Sooner or later he is spotted, and a fusilier hastily raises his pistol, mouth fixed in a cry. Steve yanks his shield from his shoulder, the sackcloth still wrapped over its face. Is it foolishness for him to trust in blind luck before? The shot strikes off the surface, leaving a groove cut in the red finish. 

Both of them look mildly surprised. Steve swallows and he dashes forward, smashing the boss of his round shield into the gunman before he can even think to reload. The shout of alarm turns into a thin cry of pain, and they join together, grappled as he pushes the Brit out of the corner. Others must see, surely, but they run past the screen enclosing the redoubt. Tossing the soldier upon the abatis, those point-tipped spikes large enough to impale a man whole, Steve dashes away from the central fortification.

No, Barnes can’t be in there. The redoubt’s sunken interior resembles a  roofless cave more than any building, little better than a hollow pit. Tarleton must have had trenches dug to divide an area near the middle for the benefit of his officers. No way he could be kept there except as a corpse.

Steve sweeps a confounded look around him, searching past the evidence of the supply lines to the trenches carved into the ground. Earthworks sprung up almost overnight a month past. The talk of the Americans suggests some kind of witchery lay behind the efficient advance. As their own redoubts fall, they stared in wonder at the advancing line drawn ever closer to the farmhouses that mark General Greene’s headquarters, their last bastion.

People of all nations are thrown together far ahead, the English and the Scots and Germans colliding with Americans of every colony. He plunges along the perimeter, trusting in the cover of darkness to let him melt away. Tarleton’s men lunge for the battle the way hounds chase a bloodied stag or boar. What help he might offer requires him to dash along the trenches, and he almost trips several times. 

Steve is left in shock to discover the nature of the earthworks past the horses, for deep lines cut into the turf lead to some kind of trench defended against the American guns by a low berm. They can see that much from the fort. 

They cannot see the backside of the slope. Rather than cannons dug in, he finds shapes he doesn’t quite understand.  _ Root cellar doors?  _ Yet who digs in cellars like this? Only when he pauses to yank one open at terrible risk to himself does the truth become clear.

A cellar, yes, probably intended for supplies. But a narrow cellar barely large enough for a man contains a pair of manacles and a limp body. No amount of knocking or the subtle change in light makes a difference for the gentleman in a soiled coat, for he has found his well-earned rest elsewhere.

Too fair-haired to be James Barnes, but one of their men nonetheless.

Another door of sorts lies much further on, staggered almost fully back. The British Army lies some distance away, and he might run to the end of the earthwork barrier before they catch up with him. Obstructions and the wild melee forming on the field give Steve cover for now.

He runs for the next target, the shield on his arm. There’s a reckoning coming and it burns in his breast.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go from bad to worse as Steve rushes to find Bucky before the last gasp of strength in the American feint gives out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: the first part contains Steve discovering a dead prisoner subjected to desperate situations. You may find this somewhat disturbing.

In the midst of a battle, time fluctuates in a way science cannot explain. Learned men describe the linear, even stretch of seconds in an orderly procession, each identical to the last. No minute differs from any other that came or stand ahead in the future. A human deceit to make sense of impossible acceleration compacting minutes together into the space of seconds. Anyone subject to anticipation understands how thirty seconds or an hour can become a lifetime.

In his search for Major Barnes, Steve loses all sense of the chaos around him. Flashes erupt in the distance, the crackle of cannon fire and reporting guns across the field. None of those desperate battles touch him as he scrabbles along the earthworks to the next door on a despicable jail. Shame and wrath propel him to duck low and shake the unfortunate victim of the British Army. Ragged clothes and gaunt limbs identify the prisoner as an escapee from the fort at Yorktown.

“Please, wake up, brother. We've got to move,” he says.

Thank all the powers that be the sunken, unshaven cheeks or glassy eyes don't belong to Bucky. Steve wants to hurl the shield at the wall seeing the pathetic state of a good man he lacks so much as a name for.

The manacles clank about. Raw flesh bloats around the rough, rusting bands holding the soldier's wrists. Dried blood runs down cramped, curled fingers from chewed fingertips to the first knuckle. The manacles had nothing to do with that.

Awful realization sweeps over Steve. This poor fellow he holds in his arms starved to death within a few hundred meters of his countrymen. He turns his head and fights down his gorge, the watery porridge threatening to crawl back up his throat.

He can do nothing here.

While he lays the manacled soldier out, Patriots fight for their lives against the pitiless British in wild, chaotic clusters. Horses scream and men shriek in reprisal for their pain. Anger cloaks Steve as he emerges from the hellhole, gulping the fresh air stained in ash and torn soil.

He has no time to waste. The three hundred Patriots providing him a screen serve as a feint, no more. Their commanders might be shouting for their retreat back through the doors in the palisade, manned by brave men prepared to slam the gates in the face of the British henchmen.

Staggering, hunched over, he moves furtively along the raw earth berm sheltering him from his own side’s guns and cannons. Every instant moves out of sync with the wild, lopsided battle.

British artillery barks, and he dives to his stomach and crawls for the last door in the earthwork. A compromise for protection when he lacks true shelter. Any grass vanished the moment the British engineers threw up their defenses. Slogging through the dirt-sided trench leaves his boots filthy, his trousers stained in indelible marks that scribe his painstaking search for Major James Barnes.

Blood and ash escort him on his dire progress, embers blown on the occasional whispering breeze. Better not to breathe too deep lest he catch the scent of the offal and gore. He fumbles in the darkness at the last portal, hoarsely calling Major Barnes’ name.

“Bucky. Buck, if you're in there, man, give me a sign.”

Steve presses his ear to the door in a futile chance he might hear a groan, though the furor stirred up between a soldiers’ chorus of gunfire renders him partly deaf. Sweat runs down his cheek against the crude wood door. Not a vibration separate from the artillery smashing into the earthen mound.

He cries out again and again, heedless of the danger. “Buck. I'm coming. If you're in there, I'm coming.”

_If you're beyond the gates of Hell, I'm coming for you._

Men scream nearby in pain and terror, the aides-de-camp of the horseman of war. He applies himself to the rough metal ring, yanking hard. Resistance meets his best efforts. Slamming his fist on the wood, he shouts Bucky’s name, the words weirdly distorted to his ringing ears. Panting his feet wide, every muscle in his hardened arms ripples, bulging, as he grunts. A scream builds in his chest, stranded behind his clenched throat and gritted teeth.

He will not surrender or retreat, he knows he cannot. Tears blur his eyes, and the door rips open, throwing him to the side. Driven to his knees, he gasps at the pain. If he survives til dawn, he will be a patchwork quilt of bruises and battered bones for the field medics to puzzle over.

The last chamber brings only disappointment. He crawls to the lip and peers inside, holding his breath against the musty stench. It’s devoid of anything but broken barrels and cracked yokes. His shoulders sink as he tries to muster enough strength to knock about the pieces in hopes of a body.

Nothing. No Barnes, but mercifully no others to report back to General Greene. Small blessings count for something,

One last option remains, the buildings hidden beyond the redoubts in the heart of Banastre's camp. Wherever that British devil rides, his men largely abandoned the low stone cottage and shed used as a makeshift headquarters. Such comforts on a battlefield as standing walls and a solid roof belong to the officer class, and Tarleton has earned every comfort from his superiors.

An itch burns between the captain's shoulders. He throws himself flat. It saves his life. A ball sailing over the earthworks hits the ground nearby. Dirt and shrapnel spray everywhere, cutting into his jacket.

Steve falls and covers his head, the shield giving protection to his head. It doesn’t help his nose ending up jammed into the muck. He dares not linger there, for all the concussion wave leaves his head ringing and ears nigh to deaf from the percussive tinnitus.

In his skewed position, he sees men in green coats rushing in orderly lines in front of bobbing flames.

Blazing torches reveal forces moving from the British side at a jog, outrunners gathering for an advance perhaps. He can’t be sure of numbers or direction. Their proximity alone threatens him, a lone Patriot in clear sight, far beyond the reach of his countrymen. Easy pickings if they choose not to use him for target practice.

Scrambling to his feet, Steve dashes as fast as his sore body allows for the cottage. Where the defenses taper off, the two stone buildings lie dark and cold. Wooden pickets bristle on the sea-facing side to repel whatever American forces might prove foolish enough to gallop over the field. Riflemen mass further along, a clot forming to turn their attentions upon the decimated American forces giving Steve a screen.

In the dark, both sides become a pantomime of violence, wrapped up in a mummer’s tricks. The captain is sure to regret this night for the rest of his days. His only choice lies forward. Another spattering of shot rains over him, narrowing missing his shoulder. Shards burrow into his skin all the same. Stinging in his arms is just something to be forgotten in the rush of adrenaline.

He just can't seem to die.

Total strangers moved to kindness by his story raise enough of a ruckus to give him a last shot. He will bring deliverance to Bucky. Gathering his shield off his back, he gives himself some vestige of cover as he reaches for his second wind.

He emerges from the quagmire of broken earth and craters, ducking behind the shed to catch his breath. Low walls converge on a crooked doorway, the very sort of place an enemy might lurk in weight. Shield first, he drops down to intercept an onrushing man or a bayonet thrust.

Bloodied hay spills ahead of him. Copper and iron hang heavy on the air. Against his better judgment, he ducks in and feels in the dark. Discarded cloth and an empty bottle lie in the dust. He holds up the cloth and squints, carrying it back to the better light of nightfall. Stained by blood and stiff, the bandage doesn't feel terribly old.

His stomach drops when he sees the stitch marks, the fouled embroidery. White stars in a circle might go unnoticed if he hadn't flipped the bandage over.

_A Patriot's symbol._

Survival becomes secondary to the matter of breaking into the cottage. He readies his shield, forgetting the rifle still bouncing at his back. The metal disk proved itself against lead bullets and the business end of a bayonet.

He moves under cover through the night. He has one shot to live another day. Steve sucks down a breath as he inches to the door, looking about for evidence of Tarleton's Legion waiting around the corner. The nearest man stands a few meters off the corner of the house.

Shooting a man in the back or breaking down the door. Slinking up to the entrance, he tests the handle. Unlocked, for a mercy.

It twists. He pushes his way inside, rotating as he goes, presenting the circles of blue and red against a brilliant steel background. Dirt falls to cling to the paint, resilient to the end. One scratch mars the ring of stars.

 

* * *

 

Nary a candle burns in the cottage. The design matches every sort of farmhouse in the Tidewater area, split into a living space and a separate chamber as a serviceable bedroom. A man takes up occupation here, given the abundance of pertinent goods. Steve manages to ignore them all, scowling at the Union Jack hung contemptuously on the wall over the smoldering hearth.

A green jacket lies on a table, proof of Tarleton's Legion occupying the place.

Banked embers grant dim light that assures no one haunts the corners or lurks behind a barrel full of dried beans. For that assured meal for a week, the three hundred men might willingly risk their lives. Some even spoke of braving their scuttled ships in hopes of finding food.

Steve ignores the temptation, shield raised, back to the wall down to the back room. He listens at the door, holding his breath. A subtle scrape runs awry to the din outside. He steps inside.

The smell of sickness pours over him in a hazy tide. Smoke hangs in the air, choking and think, from a coal-fed brazier. The hangings torn down from a skeletal bed frame cannot conceal its original purpose, nor the fact someone lies within, covered in dark strips or ropes rather than a proper blanket.

Not so much as a candle permeates the gloom, and wood nailed over the tiny window allows the darkness unfettered control. In short, the place reeks of a sick room, and he stumbles over pipes and bottles strung together in a manner foreign to his eye.

“What kind of madman's salon is this?” Steve whispers aloud.

The patient stirs to the sound. “No…”  
  
Cracked lips shape a low, rolling moan more akin to an animal's cry. Wheezing bellows of the lungs crackle. The bed groans under the weight mounted upon it, the man trying to roll and managing more than a weak flop against the constricting bands that cover his bare skin.

“Barnes. James. New York.”

Steve dashes across the room. Rubbery tubing pulls free, tripping him, and spills liquid contents in a caustic puddle. The bedframe lurches again when he grabs the post for support to avoid falling.

Cuts and bruises pepper the man's bare chest, the muscular contours plain beneath the thick leather and steel belts holding him down. His arms are shackled under the bed frame, covered in weals that Steve learns by touch as he traces down the prisoner's limbs, looking for a release. It matters not at all who it is, only they be free.

“Barnes. James. New York,” the major repeats in that dull drone.

Working in the dark is nigh to impossible. He pauses and grabs the shield, using its broad end to smash away the boards over the window. Cracking wood and glass rain down on both sides of the dismal portal, but the distant firelight from torches adds badly needed illumination to see by.

The haggard profile turned towards him shows sweat-slick skin, fever-bright eyes sunken into dark sockets.

“Barnes.” His broken voice fails. His knees buckle.

His audience catches the failure as he collapses to the bedside. Major Barnes offers a dull, rheumy blink.

For a moment Steve forgets everything about the straps and the tubes. Whatever indecencies the British performed here, Tarleton will answer for. He bows his head, struggling for control, swallowing hard against the flood of rage. Everything about this is wrong on every level.

“Oh my God,” he mutters to Bucky, more than himself. What kind of Almighty would ever let this kind of profanity happen?

The prison ships showed him a face of brutality and cruelty he never anticipated before. Internment in the cellar cells reveal a private version of the same facet of hell. If he lives, he will commit himself to banishing such forms of punishment and assuring anyone committing their fellow human beings to depraved torment faces proper justice.

As he hooks his fingers under a leather strap, he rips at the buckle. Metal bites hard into his fingers. Even through the gloves, the edges cut and tear until he rips the tongue free.

A cracked reply barely traces the threshold of being heard. “Is… Is that?”

The faltering anticipation cuts into Steve worse than glass or shrapnel. His fingers fumble on the straps, but he makes shorter work of tearing open the buckles than before. “It's me,” he whispers. Every sound chokes him to even make it.

Major Barnes blinks at him, head turned weakly on the rope bed. No one thought to even grant him a pillow, his comfort secondary to whatever harrowing acts worthy of a field hospital they performed. He tries to speak, failing in a delirious stupor. Another moan leaks from the major.

“It's Steve,” the blond says, louder. He curses the manacles. In his condition, nothing short of a hacksaw might rip those open and they decidedly lack such tools. Perhaps they exist on the wall rack, but those hideous implements repel him from even looking. Instead he yanks out the extraneous ropes and tubes, throwing that sickly spiderweb to the floor in a mute cacophony.

“Steve,” Bucky whispers, the certainty growing.

 _He recognizes me. That's a start_.

Steve’s face moves over the prostrate man's, and he fumbles at his belt for a knife. Useless to waste time hacking at the ropes. The canvas bed, however, splits fast and well with true strokes. Sawing in ragged lines undermines the support.

“Buck.”

The lopsided lift of a smile may be little more than an echo of the major's potent grin. It might be a candle flame beside a roaring bonfire, still capable of shedding light and warmth. Steve pauses cutting to press his lips to Bucky's sweat-coated brow, feeling the dangerous heat burning through.

They aren't out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.

“I thought you might be dead.“

Bucky's head lolls, lacking strength to keep it up for long. The blasts outside and the shouts through reporting musket fire filter freely through the window. His pale eyes roll to the doorway, and he swallows.

No need to warn of urgency. Steve hauls the weakened soldier up against his shoulder, propping his wounded body up, while sawing the knife through the canvas. An awkward position leaves gashes and tears in the fabric, better than the flesh. When an incision grows large enough, he drags the chains up by a handful.

Managing the shield, the manacles, and Bucky's weight together require all the coordination of twirling Peggy around the dance floor. How can it be easier to maneuver those huge bell skirts than a single man withered from captivity and mistreatment is a mystery of the world, not one Steve can find an answer for. He staggers on, pulling the major’s arm over his neck, supporting him fully at the waist.

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky says.

“Nothing fresh air and a bowl of Miss Hill's stew can't fix.” They make two steps together and Bucky goes down, pulling the captain with him. Apologies bubble out through broken lips. They have no time for this, they simply have no time at all.

The end approaches, too sudden. Boots on the ground, shouting voices issuing commands. Someone trills on a bugle, loud, shrill, and altogether too near.

Their heads snap up in concert, a pair of hunting dogs scenting the proximity of danger.

“Come on,” Steve says. He pushes himself up.

Bucky hangs on his shoulder and grabs the door frame for extra leverage. Together they move in lockstep into the room. Drilling with General Washington and his Prussian ally, they learned to march in step together, valuable lessons now.

It's a rough hobble to the door, full of uncertainties. Steve hands Bucky the knife used to cut the canvas bed. The rifle is too cumbersome in their hands to allow for more than one shot. Besides, he wants both hands free, slinging the round shield over his forearm.

That draws a blank stare out of the major. He adjusts his shaking fingers around the handle of the knife. “What happened to you?”

As they reach the front door, Steve raises the shield to block any incoming men. They have only one way out. “I launched a raid.”

“How many came?”

“Me.” He cracks a smile. “Three hundred keeping the British busy.”

“Three hundred.” Bucky stares at nothing, facing the door and certain death. He's always been quick, agile with numbers and persuasive in his arguments.

Steve kicks the door open into the lightening shell of night. Smoke hangs in swirls. Cries of the dying melt behind the aggressive boom of fusiliers cracking their guns, reloading, and taking aim. They are nearly arm's reach away, and the best the two can manage in the fracas is to keep their heads low.

Adrenaline races through the captain's veins as he hauls his best friend into the mire. They need the berm for cover and then some way of running back for the fort. A horse would be a blessing and useless at the same time, certain to bolt at the persistent, throbbing noise.

They advance in stumbling waves. Bucky moans in pain, unable to keep from crying out.

“Does it hurt?” Steve asks. They proceed forward, slower, hidden by one of the carts. He measures up an open run of twenty meters without cover, and three soldiers milling too close for comfort.

The major does the math the same as Steve. Shouts at their back demand they fall in line, that someone follows. Another skirling wail from the cornet demands an answer.

“A little.” Bucky puts his foot down and favours the other leg, leaning heavily into Steve. “Leave--”

Leave him behind. Strategically it makes sense. Every fibre in Steve's body denies the possibility and refuses the truth.

“I'll lie down here beside you before that happens,” he hisses and they move as one, slipping through the night. “We have one shot.”

Maybe they never had so much as that. He doesn't care.

“Captain!” The three soldiers spot them mid-run over the field and dash into action. Steve throws his shield high, giving what little cover he can offer to himself and Bucky from those dreaded guns. A man goes down to his knee, pointing right at them.

“Captain America! This way!” Their shouts act as his lifeline, reeling Steve in, taking Barnes with him.

 _Move it, keep moving!_ Everything counts on another step, dragging the major forward. He wills himself to travel over the beaten earth. Another crack and fire flares over his shoulder. Blood blooms on the Redcoat's chest and he falls back. Retaliatory shots take down the Patriot soldier as he dashes, calling for help.

Death runs with them. The British outnumber them so badly, and Steve ducks low, pulling Bucky close to his body.

Questions melt aside, the only sound in his head the beating of his heart, the laboured gasps searing his chest wall. Blood runs down his arm, sticking to his sleeve, tearing the wound fresh open when they collapse in a crater.

Bucky shakes his head, indicating his leg.

Too dark to know the worst. Whether someone shot Bucky or another failing passed, he cannot tell. He sees the dark, muddy feet and dimly wonders how someone gains a boot in war. “You're shot.”

The sound drowns his voice as war swallows up men in its bloody maw. Bucky shakes his head, dark hair clinging to his temples. Sweat beads run down his face. He can go no further. Who could under the circumstances?

His strength spent, his body broken, Steve wraps his arms around the man. Two men in dark coats wave at him, the billowing smoke haloing their ghostly silhouettes.

“One more time.”

The dark-haired major nods, pain writ over his face. A shudder travels through his beaten body and up his bloodied arm looped over Steve's neck. They rise together, a cacophony of bullets and roaring shouts cresting in their wake.

They run.

This is what Steve survived the rigors of his childhood for. Every time he escaped the clutches of death, he wondered at his charmed fate. He lived through storms and hunger and hardship for a purpose, surely.

For this moment, in this place. The distant sounds fade in white noise. Steve locks his eyes ahead on the palisade rearing in the distance. Pain recedes a few precious inches, enough to let him breathe more freely. He stretches out his legs as far as they will go. His height, always an advantage, gives them a pace ahead of the British pursuing them, the green line spilling out to take their shot.

“It’s Captain America! Bring him in safe!” Patriots wave them on in their retreat. American soldiers go down shooting to spare them cover. Their shouts become the wind at the two men's back.

“Cap!” The chorus builds, a howl.

When they crash short of the line, seared by red pain, the sentinel at the gate cries out. Lumber shifts, the doors pulled in, and starving men clad in filthy rags drag them to relative safety.

Legionary ranks form up in the darkness. The baying howls from their throats do not belong to men, but otherworldly creatures that haunt dreams, demanding a tithe of blood.

Steve turns his head long enough to see the face of Banastre Tarleton in the mass, glaring at him, expression a mask of taut control.

His enemy, the one he's despised since the beginning.

The gates slam shut. Everything smears into oblivion with General Greene shouting commands over the line of men. “Get a medic for the major. Keep them together, yes. Someone shore up the front line, close those gates!”

He reaches for Bucky's retreating arm and clamps his hand over the man's wrist, fingers finding digits cool but not clammy with death. Their grip locks around one another, manacles swinging against the ground.

“Buck. I'm with you.”

He shuts his eyes and welcomes the seething protests of his body.

 


	11. Chapter 11

In the eye of the hurricane, there is quiet. For two days, Steve lies convalescent in a cot the fort can barely spare. When the physicians find no risk of infection or raging fever, they dispatch the captain to recuperate elsewhere. The major follows in short order. Medics defend the limited space for the injured, those most likely to see another dawn through their care. 

General Greene ousts a senior officer and turns over the tiny bedroom, scarce fit for a servant, to the captain and the major. They share camp beds with piled paper and boxes, while the whittled down staff confer on their dim fates. British forces bombard Yorktown relentlessly, pressing in to make up for the battering taken by their pride.

Every few hours, Banastre Tarleton calls for Steve's head. 

Every few hours, the British Army calls for Greene's surrender. 

They obtain neither, and so smash through the remaining two redoubts -- nine and ten -- and install their own men within perilously close distance to the fort. Revolutionary soldiers return, whispering of the daring raid by one of their own. Every proclamation grants free ammunition against their hated enemies. Captain Rogers proved the juggernaut is vulnerable to tactics and bravery.

Steve learns all this over a bowl of gruel before collapsing back into sleep. He rests for forty-four hours in all, barely conscious enough to see to the necessaries. Incoherent, murmured questions for Bucky's state are met with confirmation that his best friend lives and sleeps at arm's reach. Such comforts exceed what many share.

Still, he needs to brush his hand over Bucky's fingers. He dares not disturb the major from his deep, healing sleep. Seeing him there within arm's reach is enough. 

While he sleeps, the American rank and file line up against the eastern walls in anticipation of an onslaught. Through the night, the  _ Guadeloupe  _ and the  _ Charon _ fire their guns on the fort. Fourteen men die in one salvo alone. 

Steve awakes to the shouting of officers in the bedroom claimed by the general, down the hall from his own quarters. The noise brings him awake, and Bucky stirs weakly upon his pillow. His ordeal leaves his warm skin pale beneath the remnants of a summer tan. Rest removes the darkest circles under his closed eyes, bleaching the colourful array of mismatched bruises hidden under his coarse shirt. 

“What's happening?” Bucky asks before he opens his eyes. Rarely have their cycles of wakefulness overlapped in the past two days.

“Stay. I'll find out.” 

Slipping off the camp bed, Steve finds his feet under him. He still wears a shirt and loose pants, his own fouled likely beyond repair. Besides, soap long ago ran out during the siege on the fort. Scrubbing pants on a rock by the brackish shoreline, where the York River meets Chesapeake Bay, is a fool's errand with the British Navy on the prowl. 

He slips his feet into his boots and hastens into his coat, not unaware of the faint smile playing on the major's lips. Stiff muscles and fresh stitches in his upper arm require slow, careful movements. Steve is unused to such demands on his body. He fumbles the buttons down the front. 

“The war's going to be over if you keep up with that,” Bucky says. 

He hears the grin and drops his hand away. “Never hurts to look sharp.”

“You must be the only man worried about that in the whole fort.”

“Every bit counts, Barnes. I'm in disfavour.”

“Why?”

“I disobeyed Washington's orders.” Steve frowns. He dislikes remembering the sequence of events, the denial coming from the man he views like a father. The only father still alive in his life. “Dressing the part shows respect to their rank.”

Barnes understands better than most. He nods and sinks back into his pillow. “Warn me when they decide to launch an assault.”

“With any luck, it won't come to that.”

“Luck? We've had that in short supply in Yorktown. You'd think the British blockaded that, too.”

The quarreling grows louder through the thin doors. Steve pulls his collar up and strokes the golden hair shading his chin. Too late for a bowl and razor, as if any man can spare the valuable water.

The short distance brings him to the door and he knocks politely. A red-faced major answers, shouting, “What!” 

Steve recoils a step to avoid the spittle dashed over his coat. “May I be of service to the general, sir?”   
  
“What business is this?” 

General Greene's command overrides his officer. “Captain Rogers. Let him in, Drummond.”

Drummond, the major, props open the door for him to pass. Steve still walks like a man thirty years his elder, joints creaking in complaint for this savage mistreatment. Pausing to offer a salute, he remains at a distance from the cluttered table. 

“Thank you, sir.” The captain hesitates. Their faces show fatigue and anger. He snaps a salute. “I heard the conversation. Given all you have done for me, I would know what assistance I might give you.”

“Short of bringing Washington sweeping down?” Major Drummond mutters. 

“That's quite enough,” Greene replies. “The medic will have my head seeing you up and about.”

“He is not the only one to ask for it,” Steve says. He unconsciously rubs his collar, feeling the stiff fabric press into his sore nape. 

The room warms slightly to a defiant chuckle and a murmur. Five men directly supporting the general fill up the space, and Steve knows only one of them by sight. They do not invite him into their circle, though their nods prove friendly enough. 

“Tarleton demands satisfaction.”   
  
“If I apologize, is there need for further action?” Steve asks. 

“God's grace, captain.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Greene sinks down into the chair at the head of the table. No one else follows suit, remaining on their feet. “I have gone grey in service to my country, and daft too. You cannot imagine this is the Dark Ages. Tarleton will not stand as a champion for his entire army, and you ours. Nothing can be settled by a personal challenge.”

“Nothing but personal offense, sir. His honour is slighted.”

“Aye, and good for it. He swears no quarter against us and I intend to ask for none.” Greene pinches his fingers shut over the hem of his coat. “You would be wise not to either.”

“After what I saw, sir, I cannot consider him a man of honour.”   
  
Six sets of eyes swivel upon Steve and hold him firmly as the manacles a medic sawed off Major Barnes’ wrists. They measure him. Greene glances to his officers and nods. Drummond takes up position by the door again, a barrier to entry. 

“What did you see?” The general's caution speaks greatly of his character, even with the surging violence outside. Not an hour goes by without guns pounding them, men shouting, the Hessian officers rounding up German regulars and organizing them. Caught in the pinch, there is little they can do but hide like a turtle and wait. 

Steve describes the jails in the earthworks in crisp, plain terms. Interrupting him for pertinent questions, his audience otherwise withhold their comments until he ends. Their empurpled cheeks and prominent veins speak to a ghastly anger. 

“The prison ships are abomination enough. But this…” General Greene crosses himself. 

Another officer peers through the curtains hung over the window as a precaution, glancing over the battlefield in the distance. “Monsters.”   
  
Steve shakes his head. “No, sir. Not all the men are monstrous. They did not condone these terrible acts.”

“Are we even safe to surrender to such men? Will they honour the terms?” Drummond asks. 

Surrender. Steve’s body goes utterly still. No wonder their voices thundered off the ceiling and leaked through the walls. He chews on his inner cheek to avoid speaking out of turn, though the clamouring bells of shock race through him. 

“Our terms would be with Lord Cornwallis, not Tarleton.” Greene presses his hands flat to the table. “Though you may be sure, I will not accept any demands for satisfaction. We had every right to rescue our man.”   
  
“Is it so dire?” Steve crosses his arms over his chest, more to hug himself against the world flying apart. The southern army's surrender would tip the balance in favour of the British. Never mind the loss of precious supplies and manpower, a foothold controlling Chesapeake Bay traps the Middle Colonies still loyal to the Revolution between one arm of the British Navy and Howe's forces based in New York. 

“We have few supplies. We're running out of gunpowder and shot. Food becomes scarce. The men have spirit enough to hold out until Judgment Day, but their bodies require nourishment. With no sign of assistance to break the stalemate, every day taxes what remains.” Greene raises his hands. “What would you have me do but pray for a miracle? I give you men until dusk to present me with a plan. Otherwise for sake of all souls under my care, I must surrender.”   
  
The inevitable descends, like the growing shadows of night extend across the horizons after the sun flees from the sky. The first time he hears such news, and Steve shuts his eyes. Not even so much as shuffling from their places, the other officers know the general’s plan. Their ragtag army demands those hard decisions. 

“Men fight in the field even now, holding back the tide,” Drummond says.

Steve bows his head. “With your leave, sir, may I discuss this with Major Barnes.”   
  
“Go, and grace go with you. You may have bought us some dignity, Captain Rogers, and for that I'm grateful.” Greene turns back to the papers, the maps, his notes spread out for an answer not deciphered before. 

“I’ll see you on the other side, gentlemen.”

Making a quick retreat, never has he been so glad for privacy behind closed doors. As soon as he reaches the room, Bucky wrestles himself out of a light doze. A blanket slithers over his shoulder when he sits up. 

“How bad?”   
  
“Providence better smile upon us in the next few hours,” Steve says. He cannot blame them. A general's role brings dreadful decisions, lives hanging in the balance on his every move. “They have no more resources to spend.“

Bucky holds out his good arm. Bandages wrapped around his shoulder to elbow bear a blotchy bloodstain, gone stiff and brown. “Come here.”

The camp bed cannot possibly hold two and the blond soldier sinks to the floor, his aching legs sticking out in front of him like a boy. He guides Bucky’s arm around his shoulder, clutching the capable hand to his chest. Over his heart. Tipping his head, Steve brings his cheek to the warm skin. Such comfort seized at rare moments nourishes him and tides him over in the long droughts.

“I received your letter,” he whispers. “Did I ever tell you that?”

“Who brought it?” Bucky shifts to roll onto his side, partly suppressing a murmur of pain. “Dugan? Jones?”   
  
This could be the last night they hold one another like this before the end of the battle, and the inevitable terms of surrender scatter the Southern Army to whatever bolthole they can manage. A long march back to Pennsylvania awaits them, if they do not become prisoners of a British lord for ransom. Steve kisses Bucky’s arm. “Dugan.”

“Good soldier. Plucky as hell. He kept running even with riders chasing us down.”   
  
Bucky’s brow bears a heavy weight, and his eyes dim to a memory close enough to still bleed. He clamps his mouth tight, and Steve strokes his knuckles as a wordless show of support. “You redefined bravery by escaping the British.”

“Bravery hardly counts when they catch you.” 

“Look at how many made it through to our lines and land. You gave them hope and sounded the alarm for Yorktown.” He tilts his head back again, and Bucky presses his forehead to Steve’s. They remain silent for some long moments, the murmurs of argument dissipated beyond the walls of their room. Beyond the house, British cannons pummel defenses to flinders and rubble. The units do all they can to fight.

Bucky nods quietly. “You want to be down there.”

“They gave their lives for a chance at freedom. I have to do my part.” His place awaits among his fellow Revolutionaries, he knows this. “My work isn’t done, Buck. Can you forgive me?”   
  
“It’s where you are meant to be.” The major buries his face in the loose golden hair, wheat fields that flow over his cheek. He roughly kisses Steve’s hairline, trailing down over his ear. “You and I together, our enemy ahead of us.”

“At least if this is the end, I have a friend with me,” Steve says. Peggy will not begrudge him comrades in arms. Sharon will take her in. The Church fortune is vast and General Carter guards his daughters well. As the widow of a Yorktown hero, she may look to a better match, a prosperous and happy one, and children. 

_ Forgive me my trespasses and faults as a husband, dear love. I’ll wait for you on the other side _ . 

He pushes away all the could have beens and might haves littering paths to a future he will not see. They can’t live for possibilities. He fights for the moment, and choice, and chance. Bucky holds him close for a few minutes more until Steve stands. 

They both begin to dress, trying to make the most of their limited weapons and their attire. Officers dash in and out of the house. While they dress, they compare strategies and possibilities, and what little stands out hinges on daring or forces outside their control.

“Enough men in small ships might try to storm the  _ Charon _ ,” Bucky says as he pulls on his boots.

“Too likely to fire. They’d have to catch her, and the crew will not stand for an attack,” Steve replies.

Round and round it goes. When they are both dressed, Steve pauses to measure up his best friend. Bucky meets his eye. A look becomes a closed step, their arms wrapped around one another in a close, melting hug.

“Stay alive,” Bucky insists in his ear.

“Stay alive,” he whispers back.

Their lips meet for the first time since Steven Rogers whispered his wedding vows to Margaret Carter. The tentative brush deepens immediately into something more, fitting missing pieces together in a snug seal. Hunger and need spill into a shared void. Their lips part and press together, gathering force the way brewing thunderstorms drink up humidity and heat from the tropical sea. 

A gale wouldn’t separate their hands wandering through dark hair and pale flax. Rain wouldn’t drive either away as they hold to one another, the only certainties in a world very much out of control. Mouths occupied by kissing cannot speak the hundreds of things they wanted to say, driven apart by desperation and time.

It ends all too soon to the boom of the biggest cannons in the battery, and a shout. The hour of battle is upon them.

They pull apart, regret a rope around their souls. Steve tries to smile. Bucky cocks his head to the door. Parting is truly sweet sorrow. The bard knew that.

They rush down to join the battle.

 

* * *

 

No siege ends quietly. A wall collapses to an explosion or bodies pile up too high. Men throw down their arms. Drama waits for the last movements of a grand, martial performance and the British, masters of the artform, sense their hour comes at last.

Major Barnes cannot be everywhere, but he tries. Captain Rogers at his side sings praises and commandeers troops where needed to shore up the lines. Together they weave their way among the gunners and foot soldiers girding themselves for a melee, like medieval knights. Hoarse shouts in English and German regale the men to form up and hold the line when ordnance and artillery rain down hellfire.

The afternoon is the longest in Steve’s life. He watches how a cannonball tears apart a man and the breaking of courage so many times over. Horses flee from their pens after a ball destroys the door, and he commands a bucket line to frantically put out the fires left in the aftermath. The HMS  _ Charon _ , aptly named for the ferryman over the River Styx, escorts a good many soldiers to their death that day.

Greene commands admirably under failing circumstances. Three times the Maryland Line and their guns repel three onslaughts, and for the fourth, they resort to rifles and muskets. Their smoking cannons can take no more, and even if the crews had shot, the gunpowder stores run to the bottom of the last barrels. Deafening silence allows British to race into the void, Banastre Tarleton riding like the devil among them, bright as a star and equally murderous.

Everyone musters while the youngest and wounded men ferry food where they can. No one complains about burnt beans and a helping of sodden oats that taste of char, soot, and little else. Salt they lack, too. Salted pork remains for the officers or the deliriously injured. One line falls back exhausted, depleted, and another takes its place.

Then comes the awful news the far western side fell, a hole in the palisade. German and British units form up. Steve rushes after Bucky, unsure of what they will fine other than ranks of men firing through the hole. The British fire back. Someone wheels up a cannon to the American side in hopes it might slow the bleeding, but as men draw swords or thrust their bayonets forward, the fracas breaks into a wild, unpredictable spiral of close quarters combat.

Men stab their own fellows, lost in the blur of battle. Steve wades in, trying to keep Bucky at his back, pushing the onslaught away from Yorktown and back onto the killing fields. His shield acts as a gleaming standard. When soldiers push them apart, he reorients on Bucky in the thickest of the fighting, as they go hand to hand, cutting down or through the assault turned upon them.

Time stands still. He thinks nothing of the meal or the morning to come. Only the men around him, rallying them to stand and hold their fire. Aim their shots at the enemy, and release. When the blades come out, they point forward and he shouts his orders until his voice goes hoarse. Somewhere, now and then, he hears Major Barnes but he cannot see the man he loves.

He dreads Bucky’s death more than his own. 

“They’re coming!” 

In the blur beyond fallen bodies and knots of blue and red coats, Steve witnesses a horror beyond words. Guns rolling up the field, pulled by crews of eight and ten, close the distance. Every meter gained destroys the minimal protections provided by the earthworks, the abatis, and the palisade. Barrels filled by balls and shrapnel rip through flesh as easily as stone. Men don’t stand a chance. 

“Take fire on the grenadiers and the cannon teams!” he shouts.

Major Barnes and a dozen other voices carry the command down the lines. The British forces need record short time to prepare the cannons. Every action performed like a symphony warming up for their grand performance happens too fast for him to halt.

“Incoming!” 

Another cry splits the air from the hubbub behind, a boy’s pure voice soaring over the mayhem. Americans on the field retreat for shelter as the advancing cannons press in. Lines cinch and buckle, pressed back into a crowd. They’re trapped within Yorktown, Steve realizes, hemmed in against the shore and the falling walls.

Loud booms burst in air, bombs lobbed into their last safehouse. The fortress is falling, that’s only a matter of time. Surely Greene will send forth a brave young man accompanied by the fife player under a white flag of surrender.

“Bucky!” he calls.

“Steve!” The rest is lost through surging explosions, one after the other, a minuet in gunpowder violence and smoky frocks that seem to explode from behind them. The whole fortress shakes down to the roots of the earth. Surely waves thrash to and fro as the sky threatens to split in twain. Crashing fury lands all around in puffs of fire and screams of the vanquished.

His hand reaches out for the dark-haired general, shield raised. A metal sphere arcs through the air, perilously low, through the seething mass of bodies. He cannot be sure of its end, only that the trajectory places Major Barnes in perilous danger. Even running, he knows he cannot be fast enough.

The crowds do not part fast enough. He lofts the shield over his head, the battered thirteen stars defiant to the end. It will not be enough.

“ _ Bucky! _ ”

Major Barnes turns too late, leaping for him too late, pulling down the two men between as the world ignites in a maelstrom of copper fire and flashing gold, the spread wings of a phoenix risen out of the ashes. Steve collapses under the weight and turtles, pulling the shield over that fallen, dark head and curled figure on the ground.

The end of the line. He remains true to the end. Bucky is speaking, inaudible through the hollow vibrations filling Steve’s skull. 

“The French,” Bucky repeats, laughing over and over, tears running over his face and onto the shattered earth. 

Up and down the line, they shout the word in defiance, Washington’s password:  _ Rochambeau _ .

But Major Barnes alone whispers the truth:  _ De Grasse, De Grasse _ .

Steve sends a wordless cry of thanks:  _ Lafayette. _

French ships of the line bear own on the British blockade, storming through the Atlantic, turned broadside. One after the other, their decks come alive with the dragon dance of black fire and ephemeral sparks. Whole craft heave at the force of the unseen men bent to the task of revenge, pummeling the coastline and the craft. Steve cannot help but imagine the white cloth billowing in the wind, the sails fat in the bellies, as streams of white froth tear in widening ribbons behind them. 

He need not see the ranks arranged on the sea to know their salvation is at hand.

The French arrive, finally, at Yorktown, and in their fury the American Patriots lift their guns and their swords once more. A ululating scream leaves their throats in a single, furious mass, driven forth by the hope of clutching a victory out of the maw of certain defeat. Greene shouts as he leads them, spurring them from behind, up to their feet. 

“Go forth! Claim victory for America!”    
  
Steve and Bucky rise together, and they run. Their future is waiting.


	12. Chapter 12

History recounts the glory of the French Navy at the Battle of the Capes. When those proud ships round Cape Henry south of Yorktown, guns firing in steady volleys, they tip the balance of the Revolution. Twenty-four ships of the line bear down on Admiral Thomas Graves’ pillaging fleet, catching a good many of them in the shallower waters of Chesapeake Bay rather than the open Atlantic.

Men fall to their knees within the fort upon seeing the billowing white sails and the gilded lilies flying proudly from the rear of the ship. A forest of masts appear over the besieged perimeters of the American fort. Exhausted men confront salvation arm in arm, tears streaming down their faces, until their officers shout for them to rise.   


The British Army confronting them takes no pause in their violence, regrouping on the field behind their grand batteries. The belch and bark of their cannons roar in steady staccato time, as though they mean to push the Americans into the very sea at their back. While the cannons besiege them, a medic fights a hasty battle to pull Steven Rogers back from the brink of unconsciousness. 

He declares, “Captain America needs rest and victory. I can do no more.” Orderlies shuffle him off to the safest spot they can among the other wounded men.

_ HMS Guadeloupe,  _ the sleek, knife-sided vessel that haunted so many nights, capsizes with too many holes under her waterline. The French drive her against Cape Charles, in the ultimate irony. With the British fully in the field, a crack force led by Samuel Wilson and Clint Barton claims the shore battery. They turn those guns upon former friends, unleashing a torrent of flame and terror to the Redcoats clinging hold to their victory.

The night falls on a draw that cannot hold, the guns too close to the fort to permit survival and the French drawn up. Comte de Grasse, that wily military mind of his quicksilver and sharp, points the terrible cannon wall of his ships well out of British range and commands his furious crew to avenge their old enemies.

Bombardment rains down in a ceaseless meteor storm that blows through the night. Smaller sloops and schooners race through the shallows and around sunken ships, diverted by their orders, to bring fresh ordnance for the exhausted and spent reserves. Steve watches the endless plumes of fire sail overhead, like some demented festival to celebrate the coming of a new world, birthed painfully in fire and blood.

“Do we win?” he asks one bloodied soldier after another. They bring him water and he presses his flask to the mouths of the injured around him, though his arm rests in a makeshift sling. He learns their names, every one.

Then Timothy Dugan rushes in, a fresh fine cut on his forehead and a dreadful gash to his trousers. “Do you know what they’re saying, sir?” His booming shout ricochets off the walls.

Patients moan at the discomfort. Steve ceases to bend over another man with a broken leg and twisted arm, straightening himself. A damp rag lies against the soldier’s brow. “Is it done?”

“Cornwallis ran,” he announces, to the hushed wonder of the room. “Left his second in command, General O’Hara to conclude the matters with the French and us.” 

“He ran?”

“Cooped himself up in a farmhouse down the field and refuses to come out. O’Hara wouldn’t press the army forward,” Dugan says. He all but glows in pleasure sharing the news, and the quiver in his voice matches the bright fire in his cheeks. “Tarleton and the rest are hopping mad, too.”

Steve sits heavily upon the crooked, battered cot serving as his sickbed. A strange lightness of being settles over him while the news slips in. Laughter creeps up from his throat, bit by bit, carving through the scar tissue of the past fortnight. He raises his hand to his face in wonder, and the warm, wholesome sound engulfs him.

As the Irishman slips out, a parade of soldiers begins to sing outside. Word spreads on quicksilver wings, until no corner of the shattered husk of a fort lies outside the overjoyous reception. Into a room filled with chuckling and confounded murmurs enters Major Barnes, limping, his left arm heavily bandaged, a broad smile on his face.

“We’re going home,” Steve says.

“Thanks to you, Cap.”

He blinks. “Are they still calling me that?”

“Better grow used to the title. They might even fancy striking a medal with your likeness on it.” MIschief colours Bucky’s voice, full of promise and wonder. He is not the manner of man to despise another for their good fortune, rich in his own many blessings. While drumbeats roll in the courtyard, they pull together, and wrap arms around one another.

They’re alive, and their legacy in the new nation they help to form sets roots down in camaraderie, loyalty, and love. 

 

* * *

 

General Washington, accompanied by his court of generals and senior officers, arrives in haste from Philadelphia. A motley party cobbled together heads north to meet them upon the road. Captain Rogers and Major Barnes number among the men spared by General Greene and Comte de Grasse, the most significant American and French dignitaries.

A day’s hard travel ends at a farmhouse in the bucolic fields somehow unscarred by the ebb and flow of battle. Their armed party settles in tents all around the fields, and they pay what mixed coin remains to the farmers for putting them out. Steve does not question what stroke of luck or genius places Major Barnes and him in a respectable three-room house, neat and handsome, across from the main farmhouse.

Nor how they come to spend their first night in ages away from violence close to a sheltering copse of trees shifting to pale bronze and dripping gold, painted by the broad hand of nature. No matter the violent intentions of men, the world continues unabated in its endless cycles. He takes some comfort in that as he stretches out on the tick mattress, his legs pointed straight. Boots lie in a pile beside a chest, his uniform in a sorry state of disrepair, folded up in a pile.    
  
The matron of the household filched his coat, and Barnes’, promising to make good on their repairs come morning. “Such honourable men should not be gallivanting about the countryside looking like paupers,” she declares from outside the door. 

Hearing the major’s low chuckle sends a thrill through Steve’s naked frame. Water drips from his brow down his shaved cheeks, seeping into a fresh pillowcase scented vaguely of lavender and other pressed flowers. His body still aches from the punishing march carrying them north to meet Washington’s party, entrusting the riders will overtake the men on foot. Horses are still in short supply in Virginia, most claimed by the British, and picketed back in Yorktown if not completely lost.

A night is theirs, perhaps no more. A night, as they have stolen evenings and spun them into months under the auspices of the poignant stars.

No candle burns, naught but the silver dollar moon hanging heavy in the sky. Its roundness marred by a diminished sliver paints the room in a surreal mellow haze, coating the calico curtains in a marvellously diaphanous veneer. The floor seethes a turbulent sheet of slate and the plain walls take on a fluid shadowy finish, tinted faintly indigo. His body burns nearly white against night-drenched quilt squares. 

His hand slides between his legs. Tension bleeds away at the familiar trek his fingers take, sliding across the ridge of his hip and down to the saddle of his thigh. A proper bath may be the greatest luxury purchased, and though the water constituted tepid at best, he luxuriates in the pure sensation of being clean. They threw coins of every stripe into a pot for the opulence of soap and boys hauling firewood to heat water in a battered old metal tub. 

The smoothness of his skin gives way to the curiously silken hard texture of his arousal, already stirring in anticipation. Any illusions they might be parted tonight ends as the doorknob turns. Slowly he pleasures himself by tickling his fingers around the root of his cock, trickling back and forth. Rarely does Steve ever experience this pleasure even in his own bedroom, for the household bubbles actively from dawn til well after dusk, and he too often stays in camp or bunked with others.

Bucky’s silhouette hangs in the bright partition. A lantern burns outside and he blows out the candle, accompanied by the ghostly tracery of grey filigree into the room. Floorboards creak where he passes, rolling his feet habitually to muffle the staccato beat. Close quarters demand certain adjustments to maintain the illusion of privacy. Yet not another living soul shares the house with them.

Steve trembles on the bed, his lidded eyes tracking the dark-haired soldier’s progress through the room. He grows drunk simply on the efficiency of movement, the way Bucky strides like a great hunting cat on the savannah -- so utterly unconscious of his grace and power in a sleek, compact physique. 

Hardship leaves damage, the bandages and the whittled, eroded musculature left by hunger. His hands will not touch the same terrain that he knew before, just as a flood fundamentally alters the landscape. A soft groan purrs over his lips, a singular note of wanting: “James.”

Something hard drops onto a table, a crude ceramic pot capped in a lid. He spares it a moment’s notice before following the line of Bucky’s arm up to meet his face. Even in the whitewashed moonglow, every dramatic detail reveals the stunned expression as the major sees him -- nude, willing, waiting -- for the first time.

“Oh God, Steve.”

He offers a smile almost this side of shy, its confidence hinging on ephemeral traces of doubt and uncertainty. How much has he sought this? No letter in all its ardent passion matches the power of scribing a thumb down his cheekbone, or broad, calloused fingertips swept along his brow to push away the longer strands of Steve’s hair. That gentle touch beckons for so much more, and in its mellow nature, almost leaves him terrified.

“Do you want--"

The inquiry dies on Steve’s lips. Bucky grips his chin and bends, folding, capitulating to an act of solemn need and wanton sacrifice at once. He could pull away, if he possessed any strength mustered for such a reckless act. But nothing compels that; quite the contrary, the blond lifts his head from the pillow to encourage a better angle.

The sweetness of their kiss comes unexpectedly. He tastes a blend of signatures so utterly Bucky’s own, the traces of butter and the small beer, and a richer, fuller presence that is his lover. Wandering through the solicitude of deepening passion takes too long for either man, especially as the long, hazy exploration belongs to summer -- not the winter soldiers, those patriots who endured the cold and harsh conditions to achieve victory.

Save gentleness for another time. Banked need demands an out. Their tongues meet and coil around one another, dueling for position. The bed creaks in protest somewhat as Bucky settles his knee upon the mattress and then drapes himself carelessly on his side, filling out a shred of space somehow, despite being bigger. Steve slides sideways to offer more room, all the while beckoning with his hungry lips to cajole the major along.

His hand moves in steady tugs upon his shaft, light and deft, merely keeping himself to certain hardness. Prominent veins along the underside trace meandering courses up to the flaring bell-end, his thumb flicking over the throbbing channels that keep Steve hard as an iron bar. His touch is a ghostly impression while the foundry of Bucky’s mouth reduces him slowly and certainly to slag everywhere else.

“I want to have you,” Bucky announces when they both run short of breath. A husky confession fills the small bedroom. 

So rarely does their intercourse ever involve much conversation. A dearth of words they make up for in other ways leaving marks upon one another’s bodies to substitute for spoken discourse. Round bruises punched into Steve’s hip or left wandering down the major’s back speak volumes for a week or two, as impactful as any faltering word on curling tongues.

Steve means to reply, but he gasps instead when Bucky takes a fingerful of the cream from the jar and applies a swipe down the line of the blond’s cock. Whatever manner of emollient leaves the substance fluid and wet, he cannot resist its effects. The cream drips across his skin, and good for something other than healing chapped hands or scratches. Nearly every goodwife up and down the coast has her own remedies, and this one lacks for a smell. 

But angels wept for the smooth consistency that allows his palm to slide unimpeded. He manages three or four strokes before Bucky slaps his wrist away, leaving his shaft stiff, pointing close to his belly.

He does cry out in earnest through clenched teeth when those long fingers close around his girth and resume the indolent pace of stroking. In Bucky’s clenched fist, he forgets all sense of himself and his whereabouts for a few moments.

The major smiles, a faint crescent that outshines the moonlight pouring through the open window through the sycamore trees. “Let’s have some fun.”

Fun? What does he define as  _ fun?  _ The hypnotic rise and fall of his fist leaves Steve off guard, pulled into a regular rhythm as familiar as his own breathing, his heart beating in his chest. He so often holds perfectly still, refraining from rising to the occasion, that encouragement takes him by surprise.

Shapes of fire and ice dance against his balls, wandering in opposing directions as the major brings his other hand into play. Steve inhales through his teeth, a ragged crest of sound overwhelming anything else he permits to pass the gateway of his lips. Their kisses melt together, mingled on the axis of being elevated into a higher plane of being by the wicked hands stroking and exploring.

“Then don’t wait,” Steve whispers, surprising himself.

Bucky laughs aloud in delight. “Touch yourself.”

He was, before the major interrupted. Yet his fist hardly matches the unpredictable grip enveloping him, left slick and almost satiny by the unguent. No, Bucky doesn’t compare to the wet depths of his wife or the other women he has known -- he pushes the thought and comparison away, chastened for a moment by even conjuring Peggy’s image in an act fundamentally undermining their vows.

Perhaps he’s more surprised he does not intend to halt the affair. Steve cannot keep the promises sworn on the altar as Bucky’s hands slow dance between his thighs, pushing them apart to allow for an adjustment where he slips between Steve’s legs.

And that brings a fat bead of precum welling up at his tip, if nothing else. Steve licks his lips, scouring his as much as his lover before the major sits back on his knees. The alabaster sweep of the captain’s body rests before him, vulnerable and open, muscles trembling like a fly-stung horse. They have yet barely begun and they are keyed up, ready to make a headlong rush to absolution.

Touch yourself, he asked. Steve fumbles another fingerful of the ointment, and slides his hand across his chest. He flicks both pert nipples, paying those low, taut nubs attention due their diligent watch. Their acute sensitivity owes nothing at all to the temperature in the room; thanks to a banked hearth without, the bedroom stays comparatively balmy. Panting breaths become insistent, deeper, rolling forth from him as regularly as the tide on the sea.

Bucky smiles. “That’s it. Keep touching yourself. Show me.”

He blinks against the rapturous indolence of his cock filling Bucky’s hand, his own fingers igniting the receptive pathways linked straight to his nervous system. Jots of fire crawl over Steve’s skin, every flick of his thumb against the tip of his nipple leaving him writhing. “Show you?” 

Two fingers sweep against the leaking tip of his cock. For that sight alone he might be inclined to sell his soul, capturing the image of Bucky tasting the residue of his essence forever. He throws his head back against the pillow and abandons stroking himself, reaching for the darker-haired man.

The pull takes Bucky unawares, and pulls them together, separating that distance found so hateful to the sudden need for connection. Steve wraps his legs awkwardly around Bucky’s waist and the world dissolves away into ribbons of flame and frantic, hot breath where their mouths meet. For is not heaven found in the absolution and fulfillment of a kiss, if the kiss comes from the soul? 

Whatever plans lay before them scatter to the four winds. Steve flexes his legs to pull Bucky closer and runs his fingers through the abundant mahogany locks, gathering them into a knot at the nape. Their bodies flow together in a river of motion, pushing him back, opening him wide to the questing fingertips that anoint the puckered rim between his cheeks.

He inhales, going still and pliant, knowing too well what that invitation signals. Following his inhibitions into the dark requires laying down some of the natural resistance, easing the way. Steve Rogers is no virgin to the other side of pleasure, initiated by the major, and cleansed by the deep, rolling sigh of anticipation hitched against his bottom lip.

Clearly Bucky feels it too. A bit of shuffling about discards the major’s fitted trousers, at least far enough to no longer impede him. The undesirable entrapment falls away with hasty tugs on clothing, aided blindly by Steve while he suckles on Bucky’s lower lip. As soon as his trousers fall aside, position changes. 

“I meant to suck you,” Bucky whispers in Steve’s ear, “but I can’t wait.”

That’s of course the rub -- they never could. He allows the major to guide him in rolling over, the ropes supporting the mattress rubbing on the bed frame. Lying on his stomach brings a special kind of pleasure, an aching satisfaction as the muscles in his back stretch and arch. 

Bucky reaches for the headboard with one hand. His fingers trail damp lines down from the knob of the blond’s spine all the way to the tip of his tailbone, streaking cooling lines like savage war paint that surely cannot gleam much in the weak illumination. Still, Steve lifts his hips in response, back arched sharply to prolong the contact.

A groan branded into his shoulder tips him down. Weight presses into the back of his spread thighs, and the midnight cloak of the quilt crumples under his clenched fists. He grabs handfuls tightly, arching higher. Demanding, insistent for touch, his body rocks back gently against the broad thigh interposed between his. It feels so good, the presence curved over him along a dozen points of contact, leaving his body singing in dire need for more.

They rock in delirious unison, finding the rhythm without trying, mirroring the cresting waves on the sea. Bucky teases with light, misdirected thrusts that brush the full hardness of his shaft against Steve’s, avoiding any prolonged contact. Flesh meets flesh, briefly oiled with more of the ointment soon reduced to fragrant, slippery translucency by shared heat and friction. Drops run down Steve’s groin, a precursor for adventurous explorations.

More -- he needs so much more. Steve can be as demanding as anyone, and the words escape his lips, urgent and iron-clad commands as much as they are paeans sung to his lover. “More,” he repeats, with less strength and greater certainty.

Music, surely, to Major Barnes’ ears.

The hands gliding along his buttocks tighten and Bucky nuzzles into his neck. The captain tilts his head, and lo, misdirects a kiss aimed for his hairline to his ear. The shudder running through him predictably lurches him back against that broad leg, an offering of a sort while he reaps his own pleasure from beneath.

Bucky hisses through clenched teeth. “You could ask.”

Steve shakes his head.

That of course only goads the major to mark his earlobe with a none too gentle bite, teeth sinking into the tender flesh and then his velvety tongue applied as a gentle salve. The fiery heat of the bite and soft suckling roars through primed gateways, forcing disused senses awake. Steve groans into the pillow, his head dipping down, and Bucky’s perfect mouth follows him right down. Tonguing at the captive flesh, he suckles on the lobe.

Creaking bedposts announce the blond’s protests, his hips presented high, chest pressed into the covers. He releases the crumpled blankets and drives his palms into the mattress at the head of the bed. The pillows slide over his wrists before he finds the frame, something solid enough to act as a backstop for the tempo climbing on a decadent crescendo. Nails skip and scrape along the knobs of his vertebrae, encouraging him to arch like a cat.

“James!” The disproportionately loud cry splinters all reason remaining in the dwindling store of concentration Steve calls upon.

Whatever impatience drove them to such a precipice, it leaves both men recklessly hard and urgently driven to a shared goal. With the same fervor they sought refuge in the fort, they melt into one another. Hunger for touch and taste set free after months of separation bring a harder edge to their pleasures. Bucky’s palm presses flat to Steve’s chest, forcing him to maintain the deep curve of his back in that sphinx-like position.   

Head thrown back Steve realizes much too late the vulnerability of his throat to predation. Too late to adjust and raise a competent defense, he clutches the bed frame when the hot kisses transfer from his ear to that crook between his neck and broad shoulder. Bucky knows damn well what the application of warm lips and firm teeth do. He spares no time delivering a bite to claim the blond captain, denting a crescent mark that he lavishes with slow, wet kisses.

Thoughts slip into the starry fire filling his body. Everything is closing in, the weight of Bucky’s body pressed tight against him leaving no room for separation.

Steve rocks against the major, riding on primal swells, driven by instinct to reverse against the hard brand settled above his tightened buttocks. That shallow angle tempts his quivering pucker, the sympathetic clench as rhythmic as breathing. What more could a man want than the ragged breathing of his lover at his jaw, the deliberate teasing?

Cessation of movement leaves him adrift, his head turned sharply to the side. Flexing shoulders scribe a high ridge. Flushed cheeks and burning eyes struggle to assert focus, his gaze seeking to measure the cause of this sudden retreat. Before Steve formulates a question, the major leans over to take a generous dollop of the cream. Leaving no secret of its destination, Bucky presses his fingers along the cleft of the blond’s ass, slipping low and deep until he finds the tight starburst awaiting his attention.

Thumb and ring fingers spread the clenched buttocks easily, and coated digits paint their languid circles to distribute the lubricant generously. Bucky’s heavy-lidded eyes and faint smile leave him with a devil-may-care aspect -- far from the truth, as his painfully erect cock and uneven breaths attest. Steve reaches to take his shaft in hand and earns a swat to the wrist for his trouble. 

The sting hardly hurts in the tumultuous pleasures sweeping over Steve. One finger eases in through the tight ring of muscle when his instinctive tightness eases some, and the tender strokes never press deeper than the first knuckle. Soon his plaintive gasps grow strident, praising the deliberate slowness. Bucky somehow restrains himself when Steve burns in a fugue of unrequited passion, thrusting to sink more of that long digit deep. 

Heat flares in a hum of pain. He breathes through the sting while Bucky gently shifts his finger, hooked, stimulating a plethora of hidden nerves. Pleasure tips the balance of the discomfort, and the insistent, feathery touches return into deeper, longer thrusts as his hole adjusts. 

“You fit me so well,” Bucky whispers into his ear. “Tight as a fine glove.”

Steve groans, trying to drop his head to the bed. Grabbing the queue of his loose hair, the major pulls him back into position and seeks his mouth. It's a punishing kiss for the pair of them, lips sliding away from one another, the justifiable need leaping up from a burn to an all out conflagration. 

He needs more. Wants more. 

The solicitous major delivers in part, knees pushing Steve's legs slightly wider. Assertive fingering at his tender hole builds to a lively tempo, the force shifting Bucky somewhat. So too does his cock glide across the curve of Steve's buttock, slapping at the top, drawing back. 

Those first wet drops of sticky warmth leave the blond captain gasping. His breath stolen away in another deep kiss meet with Bucky withdrawing his finger, and reaching lower to caress his bollocks with a firm, knowing hand. Such sensations strike him as foreign, the touches unknown. 

Only Major Barnes caresses him that way, rubbing a palm over his tight sac. A thumb runs up the seam connected to his quaking perineum, dancing back and forth like a soldier on patrol. This time Steve buries his head in the pillow and strokes himself, his fist flying over his length. His knuckles drive into the quilt and lift up again while the major draws back onto his knees again. 

Steve cries out softly. He needs no words to convey a sense of loss. 

Bucky's lips scar his leg above the knee. He flexes his leg, stretched out flat upon the bed. Wet strokes of his tongue take up the job, crossing over corded muscle along his inner thigh. Much as the captain threatens to twitch his legs shut, Bucky places his palm square upon the sinewy ridge close to where Steve's legs meet. Sealing off that option gives the major absolute control, and he takes it. 

He takes Steve's balls in his mouth, sucking on them like ripe fruit warmed under the sun. Hot lips surround one full orb and pull deep into the torrid heat. A choking moan sinks lower on the octave as Steve gives up on silence. Grinding his pelvis into the bed offers no consolation. His hand resumes its steady tempo. 

Two fingers dance around his rim and press in, slow and gentle, like the tongue curling around his sensitive bollocks. Bucky's head moves, his hair curling against soft skin, and he takes more of Steve into the sucking void that drowns all pleasures into a maelstrom raging with pleasure and need. 

His hips move, taking the two fingers with ease, and Bucky rewards him by thrusting the tips down onto his prostate. That sweet spot sends starlight pinpricks scattered across the blond man's vision. He could scream and hear no sound of his own voice as his pulse thunders in his ears. Heat slips out and coats his fingers, but he hasn't reached his peak. 

Bucky primes him relentlessly, applying enough pressure for the glazed wetness to stain the quilt and his fingers. Any lack of lubrication before should be no issue now, with his body spending clear precum in copious volumes. 

They go on like this for an epoch. Steve teeters on the brink of ruin without attaining it. 

But even the major's patience fails him after a time. He pulls his mouth away, rubbing his jaw, admiring the wrecked state of the captain under him. 

“You look positively ruined,” Bucky says, a soft croon to his engorged lips. 

Steve helplessly writhes in undulating time to those fingers tormenting him. His hole offers a weak flicker to the plundering. “Pirate,” he replies, stunned he has voice at all. 

The major looks beautiful throwing his head back to laugh, a sound good for the soul. Not all wounds strike so deep they cannot heal, and truly their lovemaking reaches those spiritual hurts no medic stitches or salves. 

Bucky does that himself, adding a fresh coating of the ointment to his cock. Poised against Steve's buttocks, he grasps both sides in his hands, dragging them apart to fully expose the reddened rosette that gapes slightly at him. A winking darkness at its heart invites violation. 

Steve groans, hoarse. “Waste no more time. Haste, James.”

“I'm willing to wait for it.” Bucky's smile deepens. 

“Got nothing to lose.”

“You've got no restraint.” 

Fingers dig into his buttocks and knead them, forcing his hole to spread in a narrowed oval. Steve's best attempts to clench shut fail as the cool air stirs over that open passage left slick and needy. His eyes shut tight. 

“Please.”    
  
Goddamnit, he needs Bucky now. His very vulnerability feeds a raging hunger. Touching himself might lead to his certain climax. So close, so terrifyingly close, the captain grits his teeth on a growl. 

A savage noise at the back of his throat rattles his teeth, and the sudden movement behind him builds the volume. Bucky's cock trails along the shallow cleft of his ass, pressing against the captain's rim. 

And then oblivion takes him in a stroke, the first nudge spreading Steve wide enough for the spongy bellend. Bucky thrusts slow and steady, pushing himself in and retreating, traveling the span of a knuckle and no more. Short increments leave Steve strained and shaking on the bed, and finally, he rears back. 

Damn the consequences. He needs the major buried in him, completing them, the separation too much to bear. Bucky shouts in surprise and grabs the headboard again. His arm winds around Steve's stomach, pulling him higher onto his knees rather than flat, an angle the blond is altogether too willing to provide. 

Their voices mingle when Bucky slides home. The veneer of civility breaks open, cracking apart gentlemanly courtesy on the cusp of unbound delight. One hard thrust almost nails Steve to the bed, his backside high, thighs spread open. Bucky smacks him once and sets up the tempo at nothing short of a gallop. 

This is what it means to be alive. Steve fights his way higher, his extended arm propped up beside Bucky's tanned limb. They both hold for life to the bed, pressed together tightly, unwilling to be divided for an instant. Any fanciful artistry known to some men and their lovers falls by the wayside for the absolute commitment to pleasure. 

Hard strokes pummel that remarkably tender and receptive spot hidden away. He swears the major takes aim with intent to hit a bullseye. If so, he strikes true every moment. Steve gasps and holds out long as he humanly can, but even his resilience fails to the clap of his backside and Bucky's legs. 

A rough effort turns his head, and Steve tastes the salt and tang of the kiss. He suckles at Bucky's tongue, stifling an eager outpouring of unceasing delight from his spellbound lover. Bearing up under such a pummeling sends him toppling flat, crying out. 

“Oh, Steven.  _ Steve _ …” 

Bucky's hands fly to his hips and tighten against the angular bones, halting his forward motion. Steve's hand slips between them, feeling his slick bollocks and his aching shaft. Two good strokes set him free of earthly torments. The third jettisons all reason. 

Too long restrained, and he cums in a geyser. Seething, molten heat roars through him. Steve plunges over the brink, a different melody in his mind making him forget anything but the point where they are one. 

Where he leads, Bucky follows. The frantic cadence builds to a peak, a piston faltering at the apex, and the major's hand slips under Steve's hip. They sink into the dark blue overload as fingers grip the oversensitive shaft and milk out the last drops from the captain's strained body. 

Bucky shouts his name in victorious adulation, his body going stiff and still. No such grace as silence settles over them. Sweat-slick skin rubs together as he fills Steve with another torrent of heat, an ever traveling wave spread out from the point of detonation. 

They would have it last forever, enmeshed in the afterglow. But belly muscles bunch and legs shake, the last reserves of energy tapped for the culmination of their mutual orgasm. Even the mightiest warrior will fall to such strains. 

Slow descent into gasping slumber claims them in the silver-burnished night. Their breaths mingle in a restless symphony, hearts matched to the same slowing beat. Bucky lands atop Steve, his weight poured to the fetching curve of the spine and shoulders. Limbs entwined, they roll to the side in a tenable position of comfort and careless ease. 

“I missed you.” The major stirs himself to whisper. He presses his lips to Steve's ear. “What happens now?”

Steve basks in the rare moments of peace. His body feels weightless, a vessel for potential and light. Caressing Bucky's knuckles with his thumb, he raises the hand to his lips. “You are safe. That's enough for me.”   
  
“Is it? We don't know what the future brings.”

The captain looks over his shoulder, loathe to move much. His smile warms, certain and steady as the sun. “Just you wait.”    
  
Bucky chuckles softly. “The world will never be same.”

Uncertainty lays ahead in the morning. Their revolution may be close to an end, but the task of building a new nation awaits the founders of America. As the major rests his chin on Steve's shoulder, the captain smiles. They will be prepared for all that comes. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! For my first RBB, I owe thanks to my wonderful collaborator, PrincessoftheWorlds, who spun such beautiful art and set me free in Revolutionary America on the premise of "What if Steve's Azzano happened at Yorktown instead?" The Howling Commandos form up under General Washington, Major Barnes and Major Stark play significant roles, and those Schuyler sisters end up replaced by the Carters... One thing led to another, and she's gifted me with such a wonderful opportunity.


End file.
